


Arashi no Ato

by Mori_no_Majou



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: (although the latter's just a comedic mushroom-samba type thing), Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, I'm Sorry, I'm sorry for that too, Post-Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, References to Alcohol, References to Drug Use, a bit of angst in there, baby's first fic, but mostly just adventure, gets pretty gory later on, references to canon character death, the romance is the very slowest slowburn, updates on the 15th and 30th of every month
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-23 06:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 204,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14326953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mori_no_Majou/pseuds/Mori_no_Majou
Summary: Leo’s already in over his head, and the crown has barely touched it yet. His country lies in ruin, courtesy of his father’s pointless war, and he’s neither trained nor prepared to fix it.Kamui is still reeling from all that’s happened, but her unpredictable draconic instincts demand she repress her negative emotions, for fear of permanently losing her humanity.Both are haunted by their guilt over their hands in the deaths of their siblings, and the effect their actions have had on each other.And then, of course, there’s that small matter of what they’re going to do when that deranged dragon god they can’t tell anyone about resumes his plans for the destruction of humanity.





	1. The Water Reflects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo goes for a hike in the rain, and learns some things he was probably happier not knowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: The first scene in this chapter depicts my interpretation of a character death that happened offscreen in canon. All the plot-important information in there can probably be inferred from the scenes that follow, so you won't miss much if you want to skip it. There's not a huge amount of on-screen death in this, but yeah, just figured I'd better say something. I want this to be a fun ride for everyone, so.

 

 

 

 

> _“The future King Leo returned from his pilgrimage shortly before the death of his father and brother. Ordinarily a prolific diarist, he made no record of where he went, for what purpose, or of what befell him there; however, upon his return, he made no motion to repel the invasion of Windmire led by Princess Kamui of Hoshido, nor to vituperate her for her hand in the tragedies that followed. This is highly inconsistent with much of his writings prior to their encounter in the Woods of the Forlorn, wherein he condemns her defection to Hoshido vehemently; in light of all that transpired between them thereafter, there has been much speculation regarding the cause of his sudden change in mental state during his absence.”_
> 
> \- From _An Onerously Protracted History of Nohr,_ volume 37, by Professor Zosimos of the Mage Academy. The first forty volumes are considered secondary sources, having been written some 350 years after the final Hoshido-Nohr conflict. Surviving copies of all forty-seven volumes can be found in the archives of the Mage Academy.

 

“Have you sent away for the dragonstone yet?”

Queen Arete was known for being quite a calm, levelheaded woman, but the steadiness of her voice here was just a little too studied to be genuine. She sat by a high window in her private quarters, one hand resting on the sill; it was a wet night, and the hammering of raindrops against the windowpane served as a convenient cover for the absent, unladylike drumming of her finger against the frame.

Over on the other side of the room, the king nodded, his proud face softened by a reassuring smile; an expression he would never wear again in this life. “Enough to equip the entire army with wyrmslayers. It should be here within the week.” His smile turned a little rueful at that. “I’d have tried to make it sooner, but the Ice Tribe might not take well to our overworking their miners.”

The queen shook her head, with a wan little smile. “The end of the week should be soon enough, if we stay vigilant until then. I’m afraid my sister’s letter didn’t go into any details more specific than ‘very soon’.”

A shadow had passed over her face at that. Garon strode across the room to sit beside her. He laid his calloused warrior’s hand over her slim musician’s one, stilling the tapping finger. He was silent for a moment, contemplating what to change the subject to. “Azura’s finally asleep, then, as I take it?”

Good move. Arete nodded, a more genuine and rather wicked smile replacing the sad one. “It took her a while. Apparently there was a monster under her bed.”

Garon laughed fondly at that; the sound was bittersweet, if one knew what he’d become later. “Xander was the same at that age. There were monsters under his bed, and in the linen chest. In the end, I had to teach him to run them through with the poker. Gave his nurse the fright of her life when she came in to check on him.”

She laughed at that, and the king visibly relaxed. For a moment he seemed to be deliberating whether or not to broach the subject again, and finally decided in favour.

“So when do you mean to tell me what kind of monster is under our bed?” he asked, as nonchalantly as he could manage.

Arete’s laughter faded. She looked up at him - _up_ being the operative word; she was a tall woman herself, but Garon in his prime was a giant of a man, taller even than his sons would grow to be - with what looked to be a kind of quiet dread. Not the sort of dread that suggested she feared his reaction; she seemed more concerned with something else, some external force. Her pupils darted, just for a moment, towards the window. She swallowed audibly.

“You’ve already seen the letter. My sister predicted that the…” Here she paused for a moment, before settling on: “person. The person who killed our family, and drove us from our ancestral lands. In a dream, she saw him take your life and your throne, and - ”

“I know,” interrupted Garon, before catching his tone and softening it again. “I’m sorry. I know that. But try to understand, my love: I can’t very well justify these kinds of expenditures to my ministers as a defence against some nameless phantom menace.”

The shadow clouding Arete’s face deepened as she nodded. She lifted the hand under his to press them palm to palm, fingers entwined. “I do understand. And I would have named him from the start, if I could. But I am bound by - ”

“By the curse, yes. Is there no way around that? If you cannot speak of the man himself, can you not tell me where his lands are? Or what sort of force he commands, that we’d have need of this many wyrmslayers? Or even which direction your sister saw him invade us from?”

She hesitated a moment; her brow furrowed, but in calculation rather than agitation, as if answering carried some risk she was trying to assess. “From the east.”

“A Hoshidan lord? Then why has your sister not arrested him herself?”

The queen shook her head. “He’s not Hoshidan.”

“What then, are his lands at the floor of the Bottomless Canyon?” He laughed at his own joke, but there was not a hint of mirth in Arete’s face as she nodded. His own laughter died down at that. “Wait, what are you saying?”

Arete sighed. “I suppose there really was never any avoiding this. It was in the letter too, and Mikoto’s predictions never err.” 

She rose from the window seat then, her fingers slipping away from his. Her gaze had regained some of its usual steel, but it was the kind of steel one saw in the eyes of a general taking their last stand. “Forgive me. I daresay you’ll think you’ve married a madwoman at first. But once I begin, I’ll only have a limited amount of time to speak, so listen well.”

She turned her gaze from him, to her reflection in the window. The rapping of the water on the glass had grown more persistent, just as if it was knocking to get in.

“Where to begin,” she muttered, pinching her brow between thumb and forefinger. She was silent for a moment, save for a few mouthed orphan words as she mentally rehearsed her story. Eventually she nodded her approval, and spoke aloud again. “As I say, our ancestral lands - mine and Mikoto’s - lie at the bottom of the Canyon. Rather, that’s where the portal to them can be found. We hail from the kingdom of Valla, which - ”

She gave a little gasp, and clutched at her wrist. Garon opened his mouth, perhaps to ask if she was all right, but she shook her head and persisted through gritted teeth.

“- Which I ruled as its queen, until he sacked our castle and drove us up here -”

“Arete, your _arm_ -”

A blue light had begun to emanate from between the fingers clamped around her wrist; it quickly spread down her forearm and up the back of her hand. Her glowing fingers clawed futilely at the air for a moment, as her muscles reflexively fought to keep her circulation going; but the light washed over them completely, and they froze in place. But she sucked her breath in through her teeth, and kept going, even as the light swept over her shoulder.

“He was an old god - one of the First Dragons - and his mind was tarnished. We’d kept him sealed away, but when my first husband - Azura’s father - and I went to renew the seal, he…”

A mist was coming off her now where the light touched her - no, she was _evaporating_ , disintegrating into water; as Garon started up and put his hand on her shoulder, the entire arm fell away in a cascade. He started back with a cry. 

“Mama, what’s…?” 

Azura had appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes; evidently all the shouting had woken her. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. As she blinked herself awake and took in the scene, she fell silent, eyes now wide as saucers. Arete’s expression blanched from pain to horror. “Oh, darling, I had hoped you wouldn't see this…”

Her legs had given out under her now, and she sank to the floor. Garon dropped to his knees in front of her, holding her upright by what remained of her shoulders.

“You’ve said enough. Now stop this.” He was obviously aiming for it to sound like an instruction, but it came out sounding more like a question: _you CAN stop this, right?_

She shook her head, with a weak smile. “Yes… I have said enough. Once the Vallite curse is invoked, it is inexorable. But… I had to tell you. With my kingdom in ruin, he now means to ravage yours as well. And the ones beyond it, and the ones beyond them. My sister has foreseen it. He’s coming…” 

It had begun to spread to her head now; once it reached her mouth, she wouldn’t be able to say anything more. Garon cupped her jaw in both his hands, as if trying to hold it together.

“I’ll not lose another wife, Arete.”

“Then let me not die in vain. Use the knowledge I now leave you to shield our people from his wrath.” Most of her neck was enveloped now, and beginning to evaporate, but she managed to turn her head, stiffly, back to Azura. “Azura… forgive me… I -”

She didn’t finish her sentence; the light consumed her completely, and in a last burst of water, she was gone.

 

* * *

 

The crystal shattered in his hand again.

Leo cursed under his breath, and gathered up the pieces, praying that none of them had slipped through his fingers onto the ground; the soil here was coarse and gritty, and he’d never find them again if they had.

“ _Hammerne_ ,” he whispered, into his cupped hands. The mending charm was an obscure spell, but a simple one; the shards flew back together, and the crystal was remade without so much as a scratch on it. He breathed a little sigh of relief, and then a deeper one of exasperation. 

“Still no luck, then?” Niles had finished setting up the tent, and now sat cross-legged on the ground outside it, shuffling a yellowed pack of cards. It always astounded Leo that he could make himself comfortable that easily; then again, considering his background, perhaps it was only natural.

Leo shook his head. “The vision always ends with Arete’s death. Which does explain Azura’s comment about her background, and why my father is, er…”

“An obsidian-hearted overlord?” Odin offered, without looking up from his attempt to light a campfire.

“A prick?” suggested Niles, at the same time.

“Why he is the way he is,” Leo corrected delicately, just managing to keep a straight face. “But it doesn’t really hold up as a reason to defect to Kamui’s cause myself. If anything, offering a humanising explanation for Father’s mental state should be expected to have the opposite effect. So… why show me this?”

Odin considered this for a moment - or rather, he stroked his chin in an exaggerated show of considering it for dramatic effect, before voicing an idea he’d probably already had. “If I may be so bold, my liege… it may be that what we perceive here is only a fragment of all that the crystal wishes to impart. Such a curse as that which claimed the queen must surely hold sway over all things, both organic and in! - there, that’s done it.” He took a step back from the campfire to admire his handiwork. “The life-giving flame is kindled! Niles, my boon companion, present the sacrificial entrails -”

“If you mean the sausages, go get them yourself,” Niles retorted, still cutting cards. Leo, meanwhile, was still making sense of Odin’s suggestion.

“So you think the crystal keeps shattering because its showing Arete’s last words counts as the crystal itself talking about… the thing that activates the curse when spoken of?” It _was_ a pretty sound hypothesis, and certainly served as one possible explanation for why he’d never seen Valla mentioned in any of his history books; not even the ones that specifically focussed on the First Dragons.

Of course, the other explanation was that it was an utter fabrication; some kind of illusory spell Azura had cast for the express purpose of conning Leo into turning against his family. His defecting to their cause would certainly serve Kamui well: from what he’d seen in the Woods of the Forlorn, short hours ago, there were barely any mages in her party, and none of them anywhere near his level. If Kamui came up against some force too heavily fortified to chip away at with blades and arrows, her travels would end there. Had Leo been in her (metaphorical) shoes, it was probably what he’d have done.

But Kamui wasn’t Leo, and manipulation wasn’t her style. She barely had it in her to believe others capable of treachery, much less engage in it herself; that incident with Zola had shown as much. No, if she meant to force his hand in this, he’d have left the woods in shackles, or else a head shorter. But she’d sent him on his way, with only his word for it that there wasn’t a trap of his own waiting for her at Notre Sagesse, her eyes warm and trusting as she assured him that she still -

He stopped himself there; that was a corridor of his mind he dared not walk down now. Even if she hadn’t meant it fraternally - as he knew she had - Kamui was still convicted of treason. Associating with her in any capacity paid the penalty of death. No, he’d do far better to repress that particular vice, as he always had; let her shade haunt his pillow, and focus his waking efforts on preserving what remained of his family.

But what _would_ best preserve them in this situation? If there really was some wrathful dragon-god bent on conquering Nohr, that was a far more pressing concern than Kamui’s ragtag army. Had Father taken any measures to repel him already, or was he still at large? Was this the true reason for the king's newfound fixation on conquering Hoshido: so they’d have resources enough to withstand the coming storm?

Leo leaned his aching brow into one hand, combing his fringe back from his eyes. Investigating all this would take weeks, even if he and his retainers had been in a position to ask about it directly. And every moment he dawdled here meant another death, another war crime, another waste of finite resources…

“Whatever it is, worry about it after you’ve eaten,” Niles said, interrupting that particular bout of perseveration. He and Odin had apparently begun using his arrows as impromptu toasting-forks, and were now munching their way through liver sausages and flat wafers of spelt waybread. “The toast came out decent; sausages are kind of burnt, but they’ll fill a hole.”

Leo didn’t think he felt much like eating, until he took a half-hearted nibble of some dry toast; at which point all the fatigue from that last battle, both physical and emotional, hit him like a warhammer to the gut. The rest of the slice he crammed into his mouth all at once; he had to force himself to slow down and chew.

“So we’d be about a day from Windmire now?” he asked, when he'd swallowed. It was difficult to tell where exactly they were: in the hours following the battle, they’d hiked some ways out of the Woods of the Forlorn, but this area was largely uninhabited, and one stretch of scrubby, urine-yellow weeds pretending to be grass looked very much like another.

“As the wyvern flies.” Niles had finished his sausage (having eaten it in a way that wasn’t anything like as suggestive as one might expect of him: food was one of precious few things he didn't consider a laughing matter), and was spearing another. He waved it vaguely in Leo’s direction. “Want one?”

“Um. What… species of liver is it, exactly?” asked Leo, dubiously.

“If you have to ask, you’d probably better stick to toast.”

Leo grimaced, and went back to fiddling with the crystal ball, turning it over in his hands. “So if we ford the river, we’ll be home by early afternoon.”

“Alas not, milord. While your fell charger could bear you across the rapids, Niles and I have naught but our feet,” Odin pointed out, speaking for the first time in several minutes. He only ever stopped talking when he was eating; it had reached the point where Leo was so used to his chatter in the background that these silences honestly felt a little disconcerting.

“Hey, my noble steed is not a fell anything,” Leo retorted, in mock affront. “He’s descended from a long line of legendary destriers, thank you very much. But I suppose that means taking the king’s-road, or going via the Mage Academy.” He sighed. “Either would double our journey.”

“Gives us time to work on what we’re going to tell the king, though.” Niles gingerly pulled the now-scalding sausage off the arrow with a string of muttered swearwords.

“Gods, don’t remind me.” Leo’s migraine thrummed all the harder at the very thought. For all his fretting over whether or not to join Kamui, he may not have a choice in the matter. Certainly, continuing to fight against her was no longer an option. Being defeated was a permanent stain on his honour to begin with, but he’d actively _aided_ his opponent. Simply telling her about the Sevenfold Sanctuary, much less giving her a means of getting there, probably counted as treason. If Xander found out, they’d bury Leo in a matchbox; if Father found out, there wouldn’t even be _that_ much of him left.

But equally, it wasn’t as if he could just go off the grid until it blew over. It would be a coward’s way out, for one thing; for another, even somehow turning himself invisible wouldn’t be enough to evade Iago’s scrying.He willed the gears in his head to turn faster, pressing it for any other options. If they were two days’ walk from Windmire, then the Bottomless Canyon was a little over one day in the opposite direction, via the king’s-road; less than that if he went cross-country. Less than  _that_ if he rode. If there really was such a place as Valla, perhaps its curse could prevent Iago from finding him there; if not, he was just as dead whatever he did. Eternal damnation could spare one extra day.

He turned back to his retainers; they’d finished eating, and were now setting up the cards for a game of Cipher.

“Listen, I have a quick errand to run,” he said, brushing the dirt off his leggings as he stood up, and made his way over to his horse. “You two go on ahead in the morning, and I’ll catch up when I’m done.”

“What, on your own?” Niles didn’t ask where he was going; it was easy enough to infer.

“I’ll need you both to cover for me at the capital. Tell them, I don’t know… that Kamui took me prisoner, or something.” That would give Iago less cause to scry him, hopefully. Xander might still set out to rescue him, but with any luck Kamui’s trip to Notre Sagesse would prepare her for that confrontation anyway; Camilla would still be in the infirmary, and Father was only likely to react with disgust that Leo had let himself be captured, rather than taking his own life upon defeat. It was only half a lie anyway: what with all the long hours he’d spent analysing and over-analysing Kamui’s every word, she was certainly holding his mind to ransom.

“Do you wish for me to concoct a heroic rescue attempt, thwarted at the last by forces beyond our ken?” Odin obviously had several such stories saved for a rainy day anyway; his face crumpled when Leo shook his head.

“No. Failing first to protect me in battle, and then to retrieve me after, isn’t exactly going to make the two of you look competent.” An idea occurred to Leo just then; it made him look a complete craven - Xander would probably never respect him again - but Iago would lap it up. Besides, it would keep all his options open, whatever he learned at the canyon. “Say my defeat was actually a part of my stratagem. I plan to slip my chains and assassinate her quietly while her guard is down; but you fear she might seduce me to her way of thinking before I have the chance.”

“Are we to use your exact words there, milord?” Niles asked, with a suspiciously innocent expression. Leo repeated his own words under his breath, looking for the traitorous word; he felt the colour rush sharply to his face when he found it. 

“No, you mayn’t!” he retorted primly, fighting to keep his voice to its usual pitch. It was a losing battle.

“Ha, just trying to lighten things up a bit.” Niles rolled his one visible eye roguishly, as he went to untie Nosferatu. “It’s this guy we should all be feeling sorry for. He just got settled.”

The great black percheron concurred with a disgruntled whinny. Leo gave him an apologetic pat on the neck before mounting.

“Make sure Elise knows I’m still in one piece,” he said, as he made to depart their makeshift campsite.

“Make sure we’re not lying to her,” came the reply.

And with that, he was off.

He had a long ride ahead of him, but his height demanded a tall horse, and they covered a good twelve miles in the hour that followed without breaking past a canter. The sparse clumps of dry weeds grew sparser, and gradually gave way to tufts of bracken and spindly black trees choked with wild ivy. If he passed back through the woods, he’d be at the canyon in less than an hour.

Kamui would probably be preparing to leave Notre Sagesse by now, he mused. She may even have warped back already, in which case they were picking their way over the same ground, even now. The thought was a comfort, in a way: much as they were headed in opposite directions, each step along this thorny, winding path brought them closer to the day they could fully reconcile.

_“I still love you, brother. That will never, ever change.”_

He let the words echo in his head, over and over. Under any other circumstances, the _brother_ might have stung: he’d learned before their adolescence that she wasn’t his sister by blood, and the love he bore her now was an altogether different sort to the love she bore him; although for her sake he’d carry that fact to his grave. But here, the word spoke only of a future unclouded by the shadow of another parting from her. A future that, as the gloaming light faded into near-total darkness under the trees arching overhead, he rode headlong into.

 

* * *

 

And then the weather very nearly made him turn and ride back.

The Bottomless Canyon wasn’t exactly known for being an ideal holiday destination, but if anything, his memory had actually understated how cold and wet the bloody place was. A perpetual thunderstorm - how had he forgotten the thunderstorm? - skirled over the chasm’s depths, as if the sky were trying to compete with the ground in its infinite blackness. The rain was coming down almost in unbroken sheets, and Leo cursed that he hadn’t thought to pack a raincloak. His armour had begun to make undignified sloshing noises, like a tin watering-can; underneath, his leggings and arming-doublet were sodden and freezing.

“First proper hair-wash we’ve been able to get since we left for the Woods, though,” he quipped, only to feel distinctly foolish upon remembering that there was nobody but the horse to hear it. He sighed, and continued on, squinting to see past the mist rising off the ground and the water streaming from his fringe. 

There had been a Hoshidan outpost last time he’d been here, as he recalled. Deserted now - he and his siblings had personally seen to that, in the moments leading up to the worst of his life - but it didn’t hurt to be vigilant; the Canyon did form a natural border of sorts between their nations, after all.

Not that he intended to be here long, in any case.

When Leo was satisfied that he was alone, he dismounted and made for the nearest of the few remaining forts. Most of them were charred ruins now. Camilla had scoured the canyon for any sign of Kamui in the weeks following her disappearance, and from what he gathered, she’d reacted a little destructively when her search proved fruitless. He left Nosferatu there, with a clump of conjured grasses: the last thing he needed was for the animal to bolt, or be stolen, leaving Leo to walk home. He wasn't as practiced at growing grass as he was at trees or tomatoes, so the clump he summoned was more like the  _idea_ of grass than grass itself, nondescript weeds of the sort one might see in a child's painting, but the horse ate them happily enough. Fortunately the temptation to linger in the fort wasn’t particularly strong; the roof leaked in so many places that, functionally, he may as well be out in the rain anyway. So, with Brynhildr in one hand and Azura’s crystal in the other, he made for the canyon’s brink.

And swallowed audibly.

It wasn’t that Leo was afraid of heights. Gods, no. “Afraid” implied that his unease was rooted in some illogical phobia, rather than basic survival instinct and aeons of natural selection. An image sprang to his mind, unbidden, of a high window and a swirl of angry red lights pulsing far below it.

He shook _that_ thought from his head. A normal person wouldn’t survive a fall from that height, but he had Brynhildr. The third chapter included instructions on how to levitate a legion thirty feet off the ground; lifting himself back up was so basic, he probably didn’t even need to check if he’d remembered the incantation rightly (though of course he did anyway; not that he was paranoid, you understand, but it was always better to make sure of these things before it was too late).

He took a step forward.

The other side of the chasm was so distant he could scarcely make it out. The jump would have to be very precisely calculated: Brynhildr wasn’t like to be much use if the force of a fall at the wrong angle snapped his neck before he could cast anything. He tried to remember what he'd read on the subject: fall spread-eagled with his head angled down - or was it head angled up? Leo racked his brains for a mental image of the etching he’d seen, only to remember it was from a novel he’d read as a child; considering the book was about a knight who fought evildoers with the help of a talking sword and a giant bird, it probably wasn’t intended to be instructional.

He took another step forward.

In another time, he clutched futilely at a hand around his throat, unsure whether to try to pry the fingers away or cling to them for dear life. The nails digging into him were filed to sharp points, like a wyvern’s talons; he could feel his head spinning as they crushed the air out of him, but if their grip loosened - if Camilla hadn’t happened along when she did…

Camilla. She drove the image from his head, just as she had driven his assailant from the window, more than half a lifetime ago. If he did learn something down there that could change the tide of the war, then her future, along with that of all his family - not to mention all his countrymen - may depend upon his doing this thing. 

He took a deep breath, and one last step forward.

The initial sensation was rather like going up a flight of stairs, and finding one less step than he’d expected there to be. There was a moment of sick confusion as his foot fell through the air. Panic swept over him, almost as icy as the wind combing unpleasantly through his hair and pressing his eyes back in their sockets, as the realisation of what he'd done set in. He found himself instinctively casting about for something to catch hold of.

But he had to focus. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to think only of choking out the incantation (gods, _please_ let him not have misremembered the incantation). He drew the energy forth from the stone on Brynhildr's cover, and cast.

The rush of air on his face stopped.

The falling didn’t, but Leo’s descent continued at a much slower rate, like a messenger seed blown from a sycamore. Very reluctantly, he opened his eyes; the canyon’s mouth was far above him now, a tiny grey window in a wall of black. It was nigh impossible to make out the rock face surrounding him. The sickening thought occurred to him that all it would take was for him to rock too far forwards or back here, and he could dash his brains out on the canyon’s side immediately. He squeezed his eyes shut again until stars sparked behind them, as he fought to banish  _that_ mental image.

Leo was startled from his perseverations, as the black beyond his eyelids turned to red; he opened them again, only to squint past the glare of a white light, some ten or twenty feet below him. As he drew nearer to it, he could make out a faint blur of blue and green behind it. There _was_ something down there; and, releasing the spell, Leo sped down to meet it.

 

* * *

 

As expected, the _something_ was the ground. Leo met it with a sharp thud and a word that wouldn’t look very pretty in writing.

But the twinge that went through him was just as quickly soothed by a thrill of relief and curiosity, as the implications surrounding the landing struck him. Valla was real. Queen Arete hadn’t lied. _Kamui_ hadn’t lied.

He rolled flat onto his back, half to prevent the force of the landing from breaking any bones (he did remember that much), and half to get a look at the new world he’d fallen into. And a very strange world it was.

There was a stillness to the air, and a faint smell of dust. The sky was a vivid blue, streaked here and there with painterly wisps of cloud; but it existed in patches, little uneven windows peering through what was otherwise an empty white void. The landscape before him was strewn here and there with the cracked foundations of buildings, and bits of crumbled masonry. As was the landscape above his head. And the one to his side, hanging at right-angles to the one he currently sat on.

Leo had never considered himself much of a physicist. Aside from the basic understanding of botany and geology required to properly wield Brynhildr, his only foray into science was the occasional alchemic journal, which he’d thumb through when he needed a change from his usual history. But reading Brynhildr had given him a basic idea of how gravity worked, and of how many mages, all casting the same advanced spell at once, it would take to levitate a continent.

He shook the thought from his head; he could take notes on that later. The (island? He supposed “island” was the closest word for it) he’d landed on boasted rich soil and verdant grass, but it was the same richness and verdancy he’d found when he pulled up the earth in that cemetery in the Woods of the Forlorn. There had been people here once; the ruins proved that much. If Azura’s crystal was to be believed, “once” in this case had been relatively recently. Presumably they’d all been killed or exiled during the sacking. It was curious, then, that there didn’t appear to be any trace of the conquering force either.

Still, if there was nobody here, he wasn’t likely to be disturbed. He opened the fist clamped around the crystal, and made to question it again.

And was rudely interrupted by the arrow streaking past his ear.

Leo spun round; there was no-one there.

Nor was there any form of cover behind him; there was a moss-shrouded corner of sandstone wall to his left, and a copse of spindly trees to his right, but if the arrow had been fired from either direction, it would have gone through one ear and out the other. It had to have come from behind him, but there was nothing but a small pool of water that way.

He did, however, see the second arrow fly; he spluttered out the incantation, and pulled up a wall of earth in front of him before it could hit. The double-pointed tip, level with his eye, glowered at him as it poked out the other side.

He pushed the wall forward, and felt the resistance as it slammed into something, before the spell waned and the wall crumbled. As the dust cleared, for just a second, he saw it: a cadaverish figure, wreathed in violet flame. It was armed with a strange, curved weapon that didn’t look to be a Hoshidan yumi, nor a Nohrian bow.

The archer vanished just as quickly as it had appeared; Leo raised a hand to cast again. But he had not uttered half the incantation before the breath was knocked from him, as something smashed into his side and solar plexus.

He doubled over, just barely managing not to fall to the ground. His plate had taken the brunt of the blow, but the force of it was probably still enough to fracture a few ribs. It took a moment to remember how to breathe, and another to force himself upright again. This time, though, he actually saw the club come down before it could strike again; it, and the stocky figure behind it, registered as a faint, watery silhouette. Leo grew a tree to block it this time. The act was instinctive, but sensible: a clay wall would only shatter from the impact of a blow like that. Unless…

He nodded to himself, and summoned another clay wall as his assailant was preparing to strike a third time. The club smashed into the dirt, sending another, larger cloud of the red dust flying. The downside to this plan, Leo realised as he choked on it, was that now he was completely covered in spatters of clay. But, as expected, so were his opponents.

He could see them more clearly now: in addition to the archer and the mace-bearer, a swordsman was coming up behind them. Leo targeted the mace-bearer first, though, as the most immediate threat. It was a little easier, now that he was in a position to fall back on his go-to spell: he didn’t even have to speak the incantation aloud as the winding ash tree speared up from the cracked soil, impaling the creature instantly. The flames shrouding it flared up, consuming it like a self-inflicted cremation.

The archer had recovered a little from his earlier blow, and made to attack again, but this time Leo was ready; the arrow lodged itself in another of his trees. He prepared to counterattack, but caught the swordsman charging him out of the corner of his eye. The spell fizzled in his hand as his concentration broke, but Leo barely had time to swear before the swordsman was swinging for his head. He ducked, forcing past the spike of pain in his ribs at the movement; undeterred, the swordsman made to strike again.

And, in a burst of blue light, was frozen solid.

Leo reflexively turned to identify the source of the spell: a mage had come out from behind the ruined wall. He recognised the cover of a Fimbulvetr tome: a Nohrian? Had others fallen down the Canyon, and made their home here? Was that how Kamui had survived her fall?

The mage tutted, and shook her head. “Don’t turn your back on the enemy, idiot.”

Sure enough, the archer had opened fire again; Leo hastily ducked out of the arrow’s path, ribs protesting again as he did. The mage cast Fimbulvetr again, and the archer, too, was frozen.

“Kids today. Expect me to do everything for them…” she muttered, as she clambered down from the wall. There was something odd about hearing her say that, on closer inspection; she couldn’t have been older than Elise. Rather, her face and stature were like Elise’s: something in her tone and posture reminded him of no-one so much as Niles, when Leo had first met him. “You’d be Lady Azura’s brother, I suppose.”

Leo was a little surprised at that; was Azura here, waiting to explain everything? Was Kamui with her? “Er… yes. Well. Step-brother, I suppose, but -”

“All you had to say was yes or no.” The little girl had flounced past him and was skirting the battleground; the two frozen corpses had vanished, leaving only two little will-o’-the-wisps of purple flame. “And before you ask, no, she’s not here. She just said we were to harbour you, when you arrived.”

Much as he was vaguely curious, Leo didn’t see any point in asking who “we” meant, seeing as he would probably find out in due course. Besides which, the encounter had left him with a myriad of other, more pressing questions; it took a moment’s deliberation to settle on one.

“So these… creatures.” (It took him _several_ moments’ deliberation to settle on a word for them.) “Are they a part of the dragon’s forces? The ones that sacked this place?”

The little girl paused, and turned to face him slowly, with an inscrutable expression. “So you’ve heard of him already.”

He nodded. She continued until she reached the pool, at which point she stowed her Fimbulvetr tome into the satchel at her side, and produced a Thunder tome instead. She licked her finger to turn the pages, in the same way Leo’s elderly alchemy tutor had used to (a habit for which Leo remembered having to take the old man to the infirmary more than once, given his tendency to reflexively do this while they were working with quicksilver).

“I know little about him, myself,” she said, although there was a hesitance in her tone that suggested otherwise, “but it’s true that he’s the one controlling the soldiers we just fought.”

“Controlling? Does he make them out of some kind of illusory magic?” Leo had heard of Iago doing something similar in a couple of sorties. By him, it was a pretty unethical strategy; aside from putting a huge amount of strain on the caster, the arcane energy used for casting any spell was drawn directly from the earth (save the ones in Brynhildr, which drew their power from the stone on its cover), and casting an illusion on that scale expended a huge amount. Farming that much of it, only to burn it up on cannon fodder, couldn’t be good for the environment in the long-term. Leo had a pet hypothesis that this was part of why Nohr’s soil was so dried-up and barren now.

But she shook her head. “More like necromancy.”

“So they were originally…?”

“Vallite civilians who died during the siege, yes.” Her tone had a clinical, offhand air to it, as if the practice of necromancy was about as remarkable to her as the practice of dentistry. She nodded to herself, apparently having found the page she wanted, and readied the spell. Lightning sparked from her fingers to dance over the pool’s surface.

The water reared up with an almighty roar. When it settled again, yet more violet flames floated over it. The little girl closed her tome. 

“They travel through water,” she said, by way of explanation, “and I’d rather they didn’t follow me home.”

Leo, meanwhile, was still working through the host of new questions these explanations had raised. “But necromancy… really, necromancy? I mean - I’ve read on it extensively, and dabbled a little, but I didn’t think it was possible to successfully use it for anything more sophisticated than a Faceless. How would -”

“Are you always this talkative? In my day, children were seen and not heard,” she sniffed. “In any case, don’t you have a more pressing lesson to attend to? - also, don’t dabble in necromancy. No good ever comes of that one.”

“Ah, the crystal. Er. I don’t suppose there’s anywhere more… fortified I could go to look at it?”

The mage nodded approvingly. “First sensible thing to come out of your mouth, child. I’m staying near here with…” (she paused for a moment, as if debating internally over whether the word she had been about to say was the correct one; she honestly sounded surprised, and a little pleased, upon realising it was) “… a friend. If you have any more questions, I daresay he’ll answer them more patiently than I would.”

She continued past the pool - continued _up_ ; they had come to a strip of land that twisted into a möbius, and parts of the path ahead seemed to be upside-down - and motioned for him to follow. And follow he did, past ruins brought down by wisps of water and candle-flame, and great grey trees that hung off the earth like bats; trying with all his will, as he went, to keep the constant stream of small questions these surroundings prompted from eclipsing, in his mind, the major ones that had brought him here to begin with.

He would find out who this old god was, that Queen Arete had given her life to safeguard his country from.

He would ascertain why Azura had thought this was information he needed, and what might be done with it when he had it.

And he would learn what he needed to judge, once and for all, whether Kamui’s way was right or wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! :D This is my first attempt at a fic; I'm afraid it's going to be a bit of a slow starter, and reeeeeeally long once it gets going (it took me two years just to outline the darn thing, ha), so bear with. Post-Birthright leokamu fics are my ABSOLUTE JAM and there aren't nearly enough of them (PLEASE LET'S HAVE SOME MORE OF THEM), so I'm determined to get this done, and to do it as well as I can :U
> 
> Anyway, I don't really have a lot else to say yet, so I'll just spend the rest of these notes talking about character and worldbuilding stuff I guess!!
> 
> \- As mentioned in the tags, the leokamu stuff is going to be pretty slowburn, I'm afraid. This is partly because the plotline mostly focuses on the two of them trying to defeat Anankos rather than being a straightforward romance story... but it's mostly because I'm a terrible gremlin who likes to write hopeless pining.
> 
> \- Interesting little factoid: while the wyrmslayer part is a headcanon based on inference, dragonstone really is used to forge weapons in the games. Namely, it was canonically used in the forging of Falchion (according to development notes from FE4, anyway) - hence why the blade is effective against dragons. Seeing as dragonstone is an expensive, but still reasonably easily-obtainable ore, I figured it probably is also used in wyrmslayers to achieve the same effect. It’s also mentioned in… Awakening, I think? - to be a popular material in jewellery-making, hence why it’s sold in regular item shops in most games; I guess normal people in the FEverse do need to make a living, and not everyone wants to be a mercenary or an Anna, haha.
> 
> \- In the interests of health and safety, I'd also like to take this time to stress that, while little Xander did indeed go on to impale many monsters with it, he has never assaulted another person with the poker, or indeed any other kind of fire iron. He was very apologetic, and his nurse saw the funny side of it once the initial surprise was over.
> 
> \- I feel like Nyx was such a missed opportunity in the game. She could have been this badass old-lady mentor figure to Kamui and Leo, a la Professor McGonagall, but instead she gets the most minor role on the other two routes, doesn’t even get a look-in on Birthright, and her supports with both of them revolve around her being given pep-talks over her curse, rather than giving them the kind of advice she could give that they’d actually find really useful (especially Leo: where Xander is the kind of adult Leo feels pressured to emulate, Nyx is the kind of adult he could realistically expect to grow into naturally, so he could probably stand to benefit from being warned off of doing the things she’s less than proud of herself for). So yeah, this is My City™ and we’re fixing that, bring on Anime Professor McGonagall.
> 
> \- Leo's acrophobia is a popular headcanon (it certainly explains why he can't access the wyvern rider class, anyway), but I like to think he developed it during the concubine wars, following a specific incident we'll get more on later.
> 
> \- Leo in general is just a very fun character to write. There's just so much going on in his head at any one time. That said, I hope the narrative doesn't go off onto too many tangents; if it does, and it gets to be a nuisance, please don't hesitate to tell me and I'll do my best to dial it down a bit in future chapters from his POV (actually, if ANYTHING about my writing gets to be a nuisance, please let me know; I need criticism to improve, haha).
> 
> \- I have the entire thing outlined, but I don't have the clearest idea yet of how long I'll take to complete each chapter. So let's just say if chapter 2's not done soon, please yell at me.


	2. Invisible Kingdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo visits an old folks' home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: brief references to child abuse; one subtle reference to a suicide attempt. The second scene features a canon character death that’s technically murder, but smacks of suicide. I’m sorry, you guise; this is mostly just a silly shounen thing, so there won’t be any more death in it for a while, I swear.  
> Also, since my search for a fitting simile that would be an in-character observation for Leo to make led me to a fairly obscure result (certainly one I hadn’t heard of), I’ll spare you the trip to Wikipedia: an athanor is a kind of furnace, which was used in alchemy.

 

 

 

 

> _“Lady Mariya was born in 1266, to parents who were genteel rather than noble: while the family had earned acclaim for their military exploits, they were of middling stock, making her a less viable choice of queen than Katerina. That Garon went on to marry Arete - ostensibly a complete unknown - after his first wife’s death remained something of a sore spot for Mariya’s family long after her death._
> 
> _Mariya was schooled in illusory magic from an early age, an art which she reportedly used later in life against Garon’s other mistresses, disguising her son as their children and putting him up to spying on them. She was an alumnus of the Mage Academy, and attended around the same time as General Iago; there is some surviving correspondence between them, which indicates that they frequently worked on the same research projects and may have been friends. The few records made of the project King Garon launched, following Arete’s death, name both Mariya and Iago on the research team. Their findings were never made public; nor was the dispute that led to Mariya’s arrest and execution in 1300.”_
> 
> \- From _The Wives and Mistresses of King Garon_ , a single-volume book by the historian Recolte. The book is a secondary source, written some 600 years after the death of the king; since its author persistently claimed, rather dubiously, to be distantly related to Lady Mariya (and, by extension, to King Leo), his prose has garnered some criticism for subjectivity, displaying an open bias in Mariya’s favour at the expense of King Garon’s other mistresses, and frequently going off into tangents comparing her life to his own. Despite this, the book is still in print, and has been the basis for a few historical novels with yellow covers.

 

“You’re dawdling, child. Keep up.”

“Huh, perhaps because I have a stitch _directly over my broken ribs_ ,” Leo muttered. 

His side was not the only part of his body protesting. The surreal twists and turns of the terrain were beginning to make his head hurt. That was to be expected, though: Valla’s peculiar geography meant that the earth’s gravitational pull would have to work differently down here, he supposed, so the force would either be pressing his skull down on his neck, or stretching it upwards. He’d spent a few moments trying to determine which; but then, while lost in this reverie, he’d almost blundered over the edge of one of the islands, and that had pretty well broken his train of thought.

Either way, his erstwhile guide seemed unaffected. She walked purposefully a few metres ahead of him, as briskly as someone her height could manage. Leo knew better than to ask her again if they had much farther to go; the first time, she’d pointed out that the dragon’s eyes and ears were everywhere, and as such it was better not to give away her address until they arrived.

Rather, that’s how Leo would have phrased it. She herself had prefaced the explanation with a roll of the eyes and a _what do they teach in schools these days?_

A thought occurred to him, then, that he was a trifle ashamed not to have considered earlier: this girl _claimed_ to be an associate of Azura’s, but Leo had no way of being sure that she was telling the truth. For all he knew, she was one of the dragon’s servants, and he was blithely skipping into a trap. He figured he should probably broach the subject before going any further, and set about trying to come up with a subtle enough way of doing so.

“I notice you carry a copy of Fimbulvetr,” he ventured, finally.

She seemed faintly amused at that. “Trying to work out whether I’m Nohrian, in a roundabout way of checking that I’m not in league with the wyrm, as I take it?”

Damn it.

“No, just making polite conversation,” he lied innocently. She tutted, and shook her head.

“A pity. Vigilance is a commendable quality in a child your age.”

“I _am_ a prince, mark you,” he retorted primly. He’d managed to keep the remark in his head until now. Growing up as Elise’s elder brother, he was used to handling the occasional bout of brattiness; and, seeing as he was in a foreign country boasting entirely different laws of physics, it had been in his own best interests to stay on his guide’s good side. But being condescended to by someone Elise’s age was beginning to get a little tiresome.

“You’re not a prince down here,” she countered, not unreasonably. “Down here, you’re one of the only three living beings who don’t answer to the dragon. Of those three, you are _the_ only one who doesn’t know how to survive out in the open, or where any of the safe houses are, or where the only portal back to the surface is. If you wish to know these things, you’d do well not to sass your elders.”

“I’m twenty-three,” Leo pointed out.

“Precisely. Anyway, in answer to the question you didn’t ask, yes, I am Nohrian by birth; although whether I’ve spent enough time living in your society to legally be considered a citizen is debatable.” She sighed, then. “Besides, I couldn’t turn coat for him even if I wanted to. My life has belonged to Lady Azura for some time now.”

“You owe her a life debt - ?” he began, but she halted, and held up a finger to shush him without looking round (based on the way she held it up, Leo took it for a different finger at first, and was mildly affronted for a moment). They had come to a place where the ruins were closer together: the remains of a city, most like. The squat, trapezoidal buildings were slightly less run-down here, and a few boasted more than one surviving storey, advertised by rows of high arched windows. They weren’t completely untouched, though: the upper parts of the buildings had been smashed at such an angle as to suggest that something had come barrelling into them from above, swooping down as it went. It was pretty easy to surmise what.

“Now, you’re not to draw any attention to yourself going in, child,” she said, in a harsh whisper. “If _he_ finds this place, you won’t even have to worry about what he’ll do to you, because when I’m done there won’t be enough of you left to do _anything_ to. Do we have all that down, child?”

“I’ll be careful,” he nodded. It was still strange to hear those words coming from an actual child, but he’d been clipped by enough governesses in his time to know that that tone of voice meant it was better to drop the issue.

“Good lad. Now.” She strode past him, through the crumbling doorway of the nearest building. The room inside was empty, save for a few rotted bits of broken furniture, carved in simple, angular styles from what might have been the wood of those peculiar grey trees. Most of the ceiling had survived, though, as had the flagstones; both were intricately patterned with mosaic tiles, although they were too grimy and discoloured now to make out the design. She went to the far end of the room now, and knelt to lift a section of the floor tile, exposing an opening underneath.

“That you, Nyx?” a voice called up; a man’s voice, slightly muffled, but also slightly familiar.

“Mhm. I managed to find the boy, as well.” She waved Leo over.

“Er… hello,” he called down the hole.

“Lord Leo. You took your time getting here.”

“Gunter?” He recognised the voice now; he hadn’t spent as much time in the old man’s care as Kamui had, but it was still a relief to know that he lived.

“Go,” Nyx hissed, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Leo could faintly make out a flight of rough-cut stone steps leading down; he lowered himself gingerly onto the landing, feet first. Nyx came behind him, closing the hatch after her and blotting out what little light there had been down here; being Nohrian, though, it was still easy enough for Leo to see the way forward in the dark.

They were in a chilly sandstone basement; being below ground level, it appeared to have completely survived whatever desolation had befallen the city above. Shelves lined the walls, holding a stockpile of firewood, basic weapons, and nonperishable food. The floor was cleaner than the one above had been, but it was difficult to miss the voile of cobwebs draped across the ceiling; Leo silently thanked all the gods, valkyries, and einherjar that he was wearing gloves.

Gunter himself had been sitting on the floor, under what appeared to be a grass raincloak of the sort worn in Hoshido, but he stood to attention when Leo reached the last few steps, and raised a concerned eyebrow. “Should I ask what happened?”

“Hm?” It took Leo a moment to realise what he was getting at; a look down at the dark-red spatters all across his face and armour refreshed his memory. “Oh, right. No, it’s just clay.”

Gunter nodded, face completely straight. “So you found your way to us at last, milord.”

“Hear that, Nyx?” Leo couldn’t help saying, a little smugly. “ _Milord_. Because I _am_ a prince.”

“Congratulations,” she said drily.

“Has he been behaving himself?” Gunter asked.

“He’s been bombarding me with questions almost the entire time,” said Nyx, eyes cast witheringly at the ceiling.

Gunter shook his head disapprovingly. “In our day, children were seen and not heard.”

“That’s what I said.” Their faces remained deadpan, but they both sounded faintly amused; Leo was left with the vague impression that he was missing some inside joke or another, and that it was most likely at his expense.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he said, rather pointedly. “What happened, Gunter? You’re marked down as MIA and presumed dead back home.”

“Hans happened,” Gunter said simply. “Your brother did say we weren’t to trust the little craven as far as we could throw him, and he spoke rightly. For whatever reason, he waylaid us on the bridge back to Nohr and threw me over the side. Fortunately, Nyx happened by shortly after I landed.”

In the background, Nyx had dragged a barrel over to the shelves, and was now perched precariously on top of it in order to reach the firewood. She didn’t seem to be indicating that she wanted help, and after a moment’s deliberation, Leo figured it would be patronising to offer it unprompted.

“So did you just fall down by accident as well?” he asked, addressing this to her, as she hopped down from the barrel, arms now laden with kindling and an ember tome. It was a little like watching a blackbird try to fly with an overambitious bundle of twigs.

A shadow passed over her face for a moment. “Something like that.”

“In any case,” Gunter continued, as if that was a subject he wanted to avoid, “at this point, Nyx had already been acquainted with Lady Azura for a few years. She comes down when she can, and keeps us supplied with food and information.”

“Nyx did mention a portal back to the surface earlier. I take it Azura uses that to go back up? Why do you not go with her?”

“Yes, and no,” Nyx said. “Lady Azura told us where the portal is, but she’s a Vallite by birth, and travels through water.” She passed Leo the firewood, and gestured to a tin bucket, half-filled with charcoal, on the floor. “Now, be a dear.”

As he took the sticks, and tried to remember how Odin had arranged them, a little voice at the back of Leo’s mind huffed that this was servant’s work; but, seeing as he was talking to a former servant, perhaps it was for best that he kept his indignation to himself.

“As to your second question,” Gunter added, as Leo tried and failed to make the kindling stay in place, “as a defeated general, I would be honour-bound to take my own life, if I returned to Nohr. But, equally, joining Lady Kamui would mean actively turning against men I considered my friends… including your father.”

“Whereas, by staying down here, he can do right by the king and by Lady Kamui.” Nyx inspected Leo’s attempt, made an indelicate little sound of the sort that translated to _well, it’ll have to do_ , and now muttered the cantrip to set light to them. It was a relief that Gunter had a mage around to do that: while he still made an effort to keep fit, the idea of a man his age spending the remainder of his life huddled in a cold stone basement was worrisome.

“Reanimation works differently to other forms of magic,” she continued. “Rather than being drawn from the earth, the energy used to power the spell is drawn from the caster’s own life force. As such, for every Vallite we put to rest down here, we’re chipping away at the wyrm, little by little.”

“Ah, speaking of,” Leo reached into his pocket and produced the crystal. “I daresay it’s a bit anti-social of me, but is it all right if I take a moment to consult this?”

They nodded their assent, and so Leo at last made to question it again. Just as he’d expected, when the mists swirling at its core drew back to reveal the images behind them, he was met with a different scene entirely to the one he’d been shown before.

 

* * *

 

“Azura? Come out, come out, you little witch…”

The voices echoed down the winding corridor after her - children’s voices. Gods only knew how long she’d been running; at this point it looked to be more of an adrenaline-fuelled stagger. She passed a door, left slightly ajar; without hesitation, she doubled back, flew in, and collapsed against it, slamming and holding it shut.

The room she’d run into was unlit, but appeared to be some sort of laboratory. Benches stood in ordered rows in front of her, playing host to various grimoires and alchemical devices. Papers littered every surface, all scrawled with spellcasting arrays, or diagrams depicting the skeletal structure of wyverns. Propped against the far wall was a circular stone tablet, roughly the size of an athanor, intricately carved with the image of a horned figure. Leo was fairly sure he’d seen it before, although he couldn’t place where.

Azura approached the tablet, cautious and curious in equal measure. It was hewn from a different type of stone to any Leo had seen in Nohr or Hoshido, though he could not have named it; it was the muted gold of sandstone, but had the smoothness and solidity of polished marble. The carving on it was much aged, and chipped in a few places, but most of the details survived; the swirling runes bordering the image were still clear enough to be legible, although they didn’t appear to be from any writing system Leo had ever seen. The figure’s face was serene, almost as if asleep; yet Leo felt a certain unease looking at it - and, if the way she drew back from it was any indication, so had Azura.

The door opened with a creak; Azura dived under one of the benches. Three figures could be heard entering: all adults. Azura heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of Father’s black iron sabatons, but then shrank farther back under the bench when they were followed by two pairs of the gold-braided sandals that were the standard issue for all the king’s strategists. The first pair of feet was neatly pedicured, toenails painted with a marble-pattern of blue and gold varnish, and walked at a stately pace, placing the toe down before the heel. The second was bony and sallow; they marched briskly, slamming the entire foot down flat. The three of them had been talking when they entered, but quickly fell silent.

Father was the first to speak. “So this is what your research turned up?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said Iago. The pitch and timbre of his voice sounded much the same, but it lacked the nervous edge Leo had come to associate it with. The three of them drew closer to the tablet; Azura bent down, like a cat hunting, to get a better view. Iago was the only one not standing with his back to her, the right side of his face visible in profile, but that in itself was striking: he was not wearing his usual mask, and in place of the horrific burn scar common knowledge said it covered, his eye and the surrounding skin were perfectly intact (if a little waxy). “It took us a while to find; it was gathering dust in the Hall of Remains, of all places.”

“It’s not difficult to see why. I still think there’s something vaguely unsettling about it.” It didn’t matter that the woman’s face was obscured; Azura wouldn’t even have needed to see the coronet of straw-coloured braids, or the high-collared black robe that always smelled faintly of mandrake roots and athanor smoke, for Leo to recognise her. That curt voice had stopped thundering through his nightmares only when adolescence replaced her cuffs and reprimands with worse dreams: dreams of the battlefield, dreams of the sins he’d committed at Father’s bidding, dreams of kissing a girl who called him _brother_.

“Yes, well, it’s not an art installation, Mariya,” Iago said, a trifle impatiently. Mother made an indelicate little sound.

“So what is it?” asked Father. His voice was still as warm and reasonable as it had been when Leo was small, but it was a minor-key version, tinged with melancholia; it made him sound uncannily like Xander.

“A moment, if it please Your Grace, to find the safest phrasing.” Both Iago and Mother were silent for a moment, before Iago spoke again. “We scoured the library thrice over, but there weren’t any surviving writings to be found on the subject of… Queen Arete’s homeland.” 

Under the bench, little Azura perked up at that. Oblivious to the eavesdropper, Iago continued. “But what we did manage to find was… Mariya, where did you put it?”

“You had it last.”

He stalked over to the bench, muttering something about what it would take to get some bloody respect for once; there was a rustle of paper over Azura’s head. “Ah, here it’s.”

He had produced a wad of very yellowed papers, roughly bound together with twisted brown string. 

Father perused them thoughtfully. “It’s dated 537. Looks like an inventory.”

“Keen as ever,” said Mother approvingly. “More specifically, it’s a written record of all the items offered as homages to the crown by the First Dragons.”

She circled round behind him to point it out on the paper. “You see, there’s the entry for Siegfried, and below that they’ve put Brynhildr…”

Azura wasn’t at the right vantage point for Leo to see what Mother was doing, but her voice had taken on that cloying, singsong tone she only ever used around Father, and she appeared to be standing rather closer than was necessary to point out a word on a page. Eventually Iago cleared his throat impatiently, and Leo didn’t blame him.

“And it’s this one here that caught our interest,” he said, pushing his way between them to point it out.

“It just says ‘stone tablet’,” said Father, then, “ _oh._ That’s the point, isn't it?”

“All the other receipts include a record of the donor,” Mother explained. “To use Siegfried and Brynhildr as an example again, in this column here, it says ‘R.S.’ next to both of them - don’t ask me what that stands for, though. But next to the tablet, there’s just an empty space.”  
“Or so it appears,” put in Iago; he honestly sounded excited. The sound was downright jarring; an upbeat Iago was like a sour Elise, or an apathetic Kamui. “If you look at it closely, held in the right light…”

“A watermark?” Father moved around, trying it at different angles. “It’s smudged, though.”

“I wrote to King Sumeragi’s Minister of the Left on the matter, and he’s confirmed that the receipt for the Hoshidan throne was the same,” Iago continued. “It’s common knowledge in their court that the throne was a gift from one of the First Dragons, so this is a likely lead -”

“Now, don’t be too disappointed,” Mother interrupted, “but we’ve tried everything we can, and it doesn’t seem like anything can make it legible -”

“Who’s ‘Anankos’?”

A silence descended, which Mother eventually broke. “Well, then. Perhaps the record works similarly to the tablet itself.”

“How do you mean?” asked Father. “And what exactly is the tablet itself for, anyway?”

Judging by Iago’s tone, he’d perked up again at the thought of his research. “Well, last night we arrived at a hypothesis -”

“ _I_ arrived at a hypothesis,” Mother corrected primly.

“Mariya arrived at a hypothesis based on _my_ earlier experiments,” Iago countered. “When I found the tablet, I was struck by the similarities the runes engraved in its border bear to the array on my scrying-mirror. I tried every incantation for every scrying-spell I could find, in both living and dead tongues, but none of them had any effect.”

“Whereupon I pointed out that, having been gifted to a line descended from one of the First Dragons, it’s possible that only someone with dragon’s blood could make use of it. Which is where you come in,” Mother took Father by the hand, and led him closer to the tablet; it was a little easier to see them from where Azura sat now. “There should be a Dragon Vein under this room; hence why we relocated our laboratory. If we used a reliable enough instrument, the tablet should be positioned directly over it.”

Leo had a vague memory of that, in fact: once, when he was very small, he had been woken in the middle of the night by his mother and Iago, who had made him pace the entire castle with them until he found a Dragon Vein. Being allowed out of bed that late had been a novelty, but then the next morning he’d been scolded for falling asleep with his face in his porridge.

“I do feel something here, now that you mention it,” Father mused. He closed his fists, and slowed his breathing; since this was only a vision, Leo couldn’t feel the release of the Dragon Vein himself, but the telltale golden light shone forth from the tablet, flowing into position as an outline around each of the runes.

By the look of it, that was all that happened.

The three of them were silent for a long moment. This time, Mother was the one to break it.

“Does anything seem different to you, my lord?”

Father shook his head, and sighed. “Well, that’s disappointing.”

“That’s science, I’m afraid,” she shrugged. “In order to find what you’re looking for, oftentimes you have to exhaust all your false leads first.”

“But do we have _time_ for that?”

“The shipment of dragonstone you ordered should be here tomorrow,” Iago pointed out. “You know where… the enemy is. If we can’t think of anything else, you have the option of simply leading the army to his door, and explaining everything to them once you arrive. Just play up the whole ‘divine right of kings’ angle.”

“Smacks of tyranny a bit,” said Father, with some distaste. “But it is an option, I suppose. I’ll put a pin in it as a last resort, but don’t work yourselves into the grave to avoid it.”

Under the bench, Azura turned herself in a sort of crouching shuffle to face the door; once they’d left, so could she. But as Father’s hand closed around the doorknob, he froze a moment, then whipped back around.

“Something wrong, Your Grace?”

Father turned back to Iago, but it took him a moment to reply. “… No, nothing. Listen, you two go on ahead; I think I dropped something.”

“Well, we could help you look for it if you -”

“No,” he said, emphatically, before checking his tone and continuing in a gentler one. “Sorry. No. I’ve already taken up enough of your time, and I’m sure you must both have other duties to attend to.” (This last part he said rather pointedly.)

“A-as you wish, then, Your Grace.” They both looked a little taken aback, but made their exeunt as instructed. Under the bench, Azura very nearly showed herself, but as Father strode back over to the tablet, she thought better of it and stayed put. This was probably sensible: Father’s face was still obscured, but his footsteps were a hard, angry clank, and even in the old days it was better not to disturb him when he was annoyed about something.

“Would I be correct in thinking,” he enquired, as he reached the tablet, “that this effigy was gifted to the royal family as a means of communicating with a dragon by the name of Anankos? And that I am addressing him now?”

There was no reply to be heard, but Father nodded as if someone had spoken; presumably he had been correct in thinking it, and the tablet could _only_ be used by whomever had activated it.

“And would I also,” he continued, with a remarkable nonchalance that very nearly masked the state of mind his shaking fists betrayed, “be correct in assuming that you are the old god who pillaged the ancestral lands of my late wife?”

Again, neither Azura nor Leo heard the reply, but it was fairly easy to infer; Father let out a humourless laugh. “Spare me the rhetoric. I’m not here to debate with you.”

Another long pause, punctuated with the occasional snort or “give me strength” from Father. When next he broke it, his voice was raised slightly, as if he were interrupting the opposition at parliament. “I’m not, I’m not going to - what use have I for any of that? It’s pointless trying to win me over. I already know what your intentions are. No, all I mean to do is -”

Yet another pause, and then another bitter snort. Father nodded sarcastically. “Oh, anything I want, is it now? You have that kind of power? Well, in that case, if you’re offering…”

He turned to the bench behind him, opposite the one Azura hid under; a heavy copper retort squatted in its stand. Seizing this by the stem, he lifted it over his head, poised to smash it down into the tablet.

“ _I want my wife back, you son of a -_ ”

Father’s curse was cut off by a sickening but unmistakable gurgle; it was the sound that had welled in Leo’s own throat, as he hung over a fifty-foot drop from a tower window, probably not long before any of what he was seeing now had transpired.

Except the hands choking Leo had belonged to another person.

Father dropped to his knees, struggling against whatever devilry was forcing his own fingers to clamp around his throat. Their grip was not consistent, and slipped often; but his eyes were wide, his breathing shallow and erratic.

Owing to personal experience, Leo generally avoided strangulation, both as a method of killing and as a subject of study, but he had read enough about it to know that choking oneself to death by hand was impossible. To the point of disfigurement and brain damage, certainly; but even if one was able to successfully grip one’s own throat at the right angle, one had at most fourteen seconds before one lost consciousness, whereupon the stranglehold would loosen. Sure enough, Father’s struggles eventually quietened, and his eyes fell shut, and his head slumped forward; but even then, his hands’ hold around his neck persisted. It was as if something else had seized control of his central nervous system and was manipulating his limbs like a marionette’s, his motor functions bypassing the brain entirely. If this kept up, he had perhaps three minutes at most before he became the first person in all of history to fatally strangle himself.

Azura had watched this scene with tensed shoulders, eyes as wide as they had been when they watched Arete evaporate, but now her shaking hands balled into fists. She scurried out from under the bench, and began pulling at Father’s gauntleted fingers, trying to wrest them away from his throat. But one of his fingers was equal in size to one of her hands, and no matter how she tugged, they held as fast as a wyvern’s jaws.

Her terrified eyes fell on the retort, lying abandoned by Father’s knee, and she snatched it up gratefully; angling the stem under the middle joint of his fingers, she pried at them with a last, desperate force.

And, all at once, Father’s hands fell away.

Azura didn’t look relieved; Leo could personally vouch that an experience like that was not so easily shaken off. She took Father’s bowed head in her little hands, trying to lift it.

“Lord Father?” she whispered.

His head was lifted from her grasp, but not from its slump, as he lurched groggily, almost drunkenly, to his feet. Azura, also, sprang up from the floor; but now she recoiled from him, her lamplike eyes wide with apprehension. The rest of his body stayed stock still, but he tilted his head, in a slow, mechanical motion (Leo was reminded somewhat of the little wooden Death figure on the clock in the library, who came out of a door with every chime to remind all who saw him that they were now one hour closer to their last), to face her. His face bore no expression; it had blanched to an ashen, almost greyish hue.

And then he opened his eyes.

They were red - not the soft, amaranthine red of Kamui’s eyes; rather the angry vermillion glow of an open flame - and stared so unnaturally wide that Leo half expected them to fall out of their sockets. For all they glowed with that strange light, there was a frigid glassiness to them.

As Azura backed away, a little more urgently, towards the door, a cloak of violet flame billowed up to shroud him.

Azura turned and fled, out the door and down the corridor, pushing straight past the children who had chased her into the laboratory in the first place; they stared open-mouthed after her, then turned apprehensively to glance behind them, as she sprinted on, as fast and far as she could.

* * *

“And… the vision ended there.”

While he’d been questioning the crystal, Gunter and Nyx had made a gritty black coffee over the fire; but, upon seeing Leo in his current state, thought better of giving him caffeine. So now he sat with a mug of boiled water, watching it churn in his shaking hands, mimicking his stomach.

“In all honesty, that would explain a good deal,” said Gunter, between sips. “For the first week after the queen died, your father did go through a brief phase of devoting all his time to some manner of project. He only had two other people on the research team with him, and refused to speak of it to anyone else.” He drained the mug, and set it down by his feet. “Until, one day, he called off the entire project without a word of explanation. He had most of the research materials destroyed; but then, a few months after Kamui’s abduction, it came out that your mother had managed to salvage a few papers, and…”

“And that’s why she was executed.” The beheading had taken place in the throne room, before the entire court, shortly after his fifth birthday; he’d been present to witness it at Father’s insistence, despite Camilla and Xander’s protestations. Ostensibly, his mother had been tried for treason. It had taken three strikes to do the job. Camilla had conveniently slipped a hand over his eyes at the actual moment the axeman raised his blade over Mother’s neck, but he’d seen the look in her eyes. She’d managed to keep them dry and steely, but there was a hint of fear there. At the time, he’d assumed it was the fear of her imminent death; but, as he now recalled, she had been looking squarely at Father in her last moment.

“He began making a U-turn on various things at that point, as I recall,” Gunter mused. “For example, shortly before the queen’s death, he put in a sizeable order for dragonstone from the Ice Tribe’s mines; again, though, he wouldn’t tell anyone what for. But then, when the ore arrived, he had it all destroyed, and banned them from mining any more. We all assumed he was reacting to his grief, but if the wyrm was controlling him, same as the other Vallites…”

“Then he has succeeded already,” said Leo flatly. “Anankos sits on my father’s throne, even now; and every day our people stride willingly into their graves at his bidding -”

“Unless Lady Azura succeeds in what she’s set out to do,” Nyx interrupted, setting her cup down and wiping off her coffee moustache with her thumb.

And there it was. Azura’s reason for showing him these visions. Kamui’s reason for raising arms against Father. Leo’s reason for…

What _was_ he to do with this information? If he defected to Kamui’s side, it really would mean coming to blows with his family. The creature calling itself King Garon may not be Leo’s father, but Xander was still Xander, and it was unlikely he would be aware of any of this.

Surely, though, that made it all the more vital that he _did_ intervene in the final confrontation. If Father - Anankos - ordered Xander to fight her, one or both of them would end up getting torn to shreds, which was precisely what the wyrm wanted. But with Leo there, his brother could be neatly nudged out of the way without being killed: hexed into unconsciousness until it was over, same as Leo had hexed those Hoshidan prisoners, at once four years and a lifetime ago. It would still, from an outsider perspective, make him an accessory to treason, regicide, and patricide; future historians would show him no mercy. But even if he could never go home - even if his siblings never spoke to him again - at least he would know they all lived. And he'd always have a place (it was a thrill to even think of it) with Kamui. She would be safe. His siblings would be safe.

He could keep them all safe.

Leo stowed the crystal in his pocket, and stood up.

“Take me to the portal.”

 

* * *

 

The trek was made a little easier by the fact that the road here was mostly right-side-up. As before, Nyx was leading the way: she’d been here the longest, and knew the area best. This time, though, Leo had no questions for her, and the three of them marched in grim silence.

The island they came to was rather smaller than the others, and also rather emptier: the grass still grew high and verdant, but there were neither trees nor ruins to clutter it. A few moss-blanketed boulders lay strewn about, but the area wasn’t really wide enough to accommodate anything more interesting than that.

There was also, worryingly enough, nothing that looked like a door.

“Gods, don’t tell me,” Leo muttered, under his breath.

“The portal’s over that way,” Nyx gestured towards the brink where the islet broke away into the endless white void. “The way up is the same as the way down, I’m afraid.”

“Um. You two are coming as well, right?” Leo was honestly a little embarrassed it hadn’t occurred to him to ask earlier.

Gunter nodded. “We’ll have your back, milord.”

“Meaning you want me to go first, as I take it?” Leo sighed, and made his way over to the edge, willing himself not to look down this time. This was for his family, he reminded himself. This was for Kamui.

He took a deep breath, and prepared to jump.

“Gunter.”

Nyx was staring at something over their heads. Something that hadn’t been there before, and cast a very large shadow. Taking a step away from the brink, Leo followed her line of sight: where the sky above had been empty, a larger, upside-down island, heavily forested aside from a lake shot with ill-boding ripples, now hung over them.

Was that a thing that happened here? Honestly, moving islands would probably be the one aspect of Vallite geography that _did_ make sense, even if they drifted at a much faster rate than they did in Leo’s world. But judging by Gunter and Nyx’s faces, this was probably as alien a phenomenon to them as it was to him.

“Confound it all,” Gunter cursed. He turned back to Leo. “Milord, we have to leave. Now.”

Leo nodded, and turned back to the brink with gritted teeth. And closed his eyes.

And jumped.

And was slammed into the rock face with a crushing force.

His eyes rattled in their sockets for a moment, sending his vision into a kaleidoscopic blur; but that was as long as he got to register that something was pinning him there, before the sky knight, visible by its faint grey outline against the white, made to stab again.

Leo spluttered out the incantation, praying he remembered it rightly. He felt his body grow lighter, until at last he shot upwards, out of his assailant’s grasp. He wasn’t particularly well-practiced at levitation, and manoeuvring himself back onto the island wasn’t easy, but he managed to land safely, if rather gracelessly, on his feet.

The sky knight flew after him, but this time Leo was ready for it. No sooner had it swept down to charge him than a tree sprouted up to spear it. His opponent dissolved in a burst of leaves and flame.

Behind him, more of them had descended (or ascended? Leo shook his head; the physics at play here were irrelevant), a fact announced by a sound like glass breaking, as Nyx’s spell froze one of them in midair, whereupon knight and mount both fell to the ground and shattered. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gunter being pushed backwards with a pained hiss, presumably hit; he struck back with his javelin, but his thrusts were erratic as he struggled to keep track of his translucent opponent’s movements.

The incantation for the earth-wall spell was already on Leo’s lips, as he sped forward; but as he raised his arm to cast, another jolt of pain shot down the side where his ribs had been broken. That pretty effectively shattered his concentration; he released the spell in the wrong direction, creating a lopsided wall standing uselessly off to the side.

Nyx dived to the side, apparently avoiding an attack, then froze another of the fliers. From what Leo could see in the moment before it shattered, the mounts they rode didn’t look like pegasi or wyverns; they were more like some strange sort of bird, similar in size to a Hoshidan kinshi, but with shorter necks, and spiky, ravenish feathers.

The feathers were a mottled greyish-blue, as Leo discovered when Gunter offed a fourth one. He skewered the bird as it descended, spearhead driven directly into its open beak. The bird fell to the ground, throwing off its rider; recovering from its disorientation, the sky knight charged him, but an opponent attacking from ground level was easier to defend against with a melee weapon: when Gunter’s opponent finally appeared, it was missing its head.

But even as that force was dispatched, yet more fliers had begun to spawn from the lake on the island overhead, and were now bearing down upon them.

“Go, milord,” Gunter shouted, as he raised his javelin again to meet them.

“But -”

“No buts, child,” Nyx retorted, freezing another one. “If they cut you off at the portal again, the truth about your father dies with you.”

Leo couldn’t really refute that; although the silence left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Go,” Gunter repeated, in a softer tone. “Find Lady Kamui. Help her free our people from the wyrm’s maw.”

Leo stiffened his lip, and nodded grimly. Turning back to the brink, he closed his eyes, and charged forward.

 

* * *

 

He wasn't sure how long he’d been falling, when the Canyon spat him out onto the ground. The damp, marshy soil soaked his clothes anew, but he lay face down for several minutes, relishing the solidity of the still, flat terrain under him.

Nosferatu was still waiting in the fort; the stallion gave an affronted little snort upon seeing Leo. He took the horse’s velvet nose in both hands, and leaned the side of his face against it. The relief of feeling and smelling something familiar was enough to make his chest ache; then again, perhaps that was only the broken ribs.

“Sorry for leaving you so long,” he said ruefully. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve had a hell of a day as well.”

Nosferatu gave another snort at that; this one sounded slightly mollified. They stayed like that for a moment, before Leo untied him, and led him back outside.

He found Nyx waiting at the Canyon’s brink.

As he drew nearer, Leo knew better than to ask if Gunter was coming after them; the slight droop of her proud head answered clearly enough. The pit of Leo’s stomach twisted, as a memory surfaced, unbidden, of showing Gunter his and Kamui’s drawings, during one of his stays at the Northern Fortress as a child. They were just pages of children’s scribbles, but the old man had perused them with the same seriousness as a gallery patron analysing an avant-garde abstract, thoughtfully offering pointers on their technique without a hint of indulgence in his tone. Odd that, of all his memories of the fortress, that was the one that sprang to mind first, but somehow it stung all the more for its mundaneness: it represented a simpler time, one that neither he nor Kamui could ever go back to.

He forced the thought from his head; grief was a luxury he could indulge in once he had Xander on the throne and Anankos back in the ground.

“It’ll be a day’s walk back to Windmire,” he said, unsure what else to say. “Since I’d prefer to avoid the king’s-road. Do you want the horse, or…?”

“I can walk,” she said; her voice was level, but clipped. “Even I’m not that decrepit yet.”

Leo nodded wordlessly. They made to depart the Canyon in uncomfortable silence, save for an awkward clearing of the throat by the occasional thunderclap. When they came to the edge of the woods, though, Nyx herself broke it.

“Tell me, child.” For once, the name didn't sound like it was supposed to be condescending.

“Hm?”

“What sort of country is Nohr?”

Leo turned to look at her, startled; her face was inscrutably straight. “What’s brought that on?”

“Is it that odd that I’d want to know what Gunter gave his life to defend?” Her tone was neither offended nor critical; again, she sounded like a tutor correcting an error in Leo’s schoolwork.

He took a moment to consider the question, weighing bare facts against both his personal biases and the answer she probably needed to hear, before speaking again.

“It’s a country built on craggy terrain, and gets around three to five hours of sunlight a day,” he said, after a while. “Because of this, the only plants that grow here are of the hardy, evergreen variety, and have evolved dark leaves to better absorb what little light they can get.”

He paused to gesture at the claws of black branches overhead, to demonstrate his point. “It’s also difficult to grow crops here, or to graze livestock, for that reason.”

They had reached a place where the briars grew tightly coiled; with a muttered incantation, Leo persuaded them to draw back enough to pass through. 

“But because of that,” he continued, as they picked their way over the twisting roots, “our society is built on resourcefulness and ingenuity. It’s true that our chief export is steel, so to speak; but on a day-to-day basis, we rely on our advances in magic and science to get by.”

This seemed to pique her interest. “In magic? Do you keep abreast of these advances?”

Leo almost laughed. “I may dabble.”

“Has any progress been made lately in the field of curse-breaking?” she asked, in what was probably meant to be a tone of mild interest, but the words came out a little too fast.

“What, do you need one broken?”

“No, I’m actually eleven years old and call you ‘child’ as an ironic joke,” she said drily.

“Ah, so it’s one of _those_ ,” said Leo, with the air of an expert. Nyx wasn’t fooled, though.

“You’ve never heard of a curse like that before.”

“I’d never heard of curses that kill anyone who speaks of their caster either. I feel like I should be paying Azura tuition fees.” he quipped. Nyx didn’t laugh; she drew her cloak a little more tightly about her shoulders, chin tucked into the cowl.

“A society built on research,” she mused, finally. “You make it sound as if there’d even be a place for me there.”

Again, there was something in her expression that reminded Leo strongly of his first encounter with Niles, when the thief had begged for death and been given a job. But that wasn’t his story to tell.

“It’s not a bad place to make a fresh start,” he said simply, instead.

And it would be a better one, once Anankos was dispatched. Xander was a great man, but more importantly, he was a good one. Certainly he was much more apt to put the welfare of his people before his own interests, which sadly wasn’t something that could be said of all, or even most, of their forebears; bitter pill though it was to take, the same could not even be said of Father as he had been in life. Xander may not be able to wave a magic wand and fix all of Nohr’s problems (even if, as Leo so modestly mused, he did look to a higher class of mage than Iago), but it was unlikely that the first act of his reign would be to waste what few resources they had left on drawing the war out any more than it had been. The bloodshed would end; their troops could come home; Leo would be free to associate with Kamui again.

All would be well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leo got a stable mentor figure! *Item Get jingle*  
> Okay, so first of all I'd just like to say thank you, thank you, for all your kudos and lovely comments! :D I honestly wasn't expecting this silly thing to get anything like as positive a reception as it has, I'm so happy ;.;  
> Anyway, I'm really sorry it took so long to post this chapter; I've actually been sitting on it for a few days, but a bunch of boring real-life stuff happened so I had to hold off on doing final edits until this morning. SO HERE U GO, FINALLY
> 
> \- Okay, firstly, before you yell at me for ostensibly killing Gunter off (and gods know you'd be right to): consider the Birthright endgame. Consider who was and wasn’t present in Kamui’s near-death vision. Yeah, poor Gunter’s got a longer road than that ahead of him.
> 
> \- I was a little dubious about including fixed dates in my timeline headcanons, but in the end I figured it might make it easier to keep track of stuff (as well as the fact that having Garon say “this is a document from a thousand years ago” sounded kind of wooden compared to having him read out an actual date). So, for reference, I based it on the fact that Awakening takes place 2000 years after Marth’s games, and Fates is apparently somewhere between the two (and far enough back that the characters in Awakening consider it a legend rather than historical events); Mystery of the Emblem canonically ends in 609, so Awakening takes place in the 2600s. I set Fates about 700 years after Marth’s games; my headcanon is that Kamui was born in 1294, Leo in 1295, and then the war broke out in 1314 (this is the important part; it’s easier for me to remember all this if I think of it as the whole game starting in the same year Bannockburn happened irl) and ended in 1318. The main plotline of this fic, beginning in the next chapter, kicks off in the autumn of 1319 (so Kamui is 25 and Leo is 24, heh). The receipt Iago and Mariya found, written shortly before the First Dragons ascended as spirits, is dated 537 - in canon, that’s the year Anri died. I had been going to figure out how to tie Fates’ First Dragons in with the manaketes of Archanea and work out a proper timeline there, but that would’ve meant adding a whole other game in its entirety to my stack of research materials to work through, and by that point I’d been working on this darn fic for over two years without posting anything, so I had to force myself to just calm down and pick a random significant year, haha.
> 
> \- It also took me a loooooooong time coming up with a fitting name for Mariya; it had to be something that fit the setting and the character, but I didn’t want anything too pretentious. In the end, I just named her after the mother of another literary Leo.
> 
> \- Garon, Iago and Mariya, as a trio, have a dynamic I have a worryingly specific set of headcanons about. As in, probably enough to fill a whole other fic. So while I didn’t want to get bogged down in the details here, the tl;dr version is that the three of them grew up together in the castle, but their friendship was strained somewhat by the entire situation at the court, Mariya’s position as a mistress, and Iago and Mariya’s rivalry over the position as Garon’s chief strategist. This generally manifested as cutting, but generally good-natured banter, but sometimes it was difficult to tell where the banter ended and genuine argument began. In any case, they're a fun trio to write for, and I'd like to do more with them some day!
> 
> \- Another weirdly specific headcanon I have is that the scrying and divination were schools of magic originally developed in Valla (hence why foresight is an innate ability for Mikoto and Kamui, but a learned skill for people like Orochi and Iago). For obvious reasons, this is no longer common knowledge, but some antique scrying-mirrors still use arrays with the old Vallite runes, rather than modern Nohrian ones.
> 
> \- Man, people talk about the lack of worldbuilding lore in terms of Vallite culture, and I’d love to know more about that too, but if there’s one thing that gets me curious that isn’t touched on in *any* FE games, it’s what kind of wildlife can be found in this world. What sort of plant life could survive the lack of sun in Nohr; whether all sentient life in Valla has been wiped out, or just its human population; what sort of wild animals live in a world where winged horses and technicolour anime hair are both natural enough to be considered unremarkable. Like, there is just so much scope for ridiculous pseudo-Pokémon nonsense there, my inner Newt Scamander gets positively giddy just thinking about it.


	3. Campfire Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kamui eats some toasted mochi, some chicken soup, and a bitter pill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEALTH AND SAFETY WARNING: When measuring the temperature of an open flame, please use a thermometer.

 

 

 

 

 

> _“How are you both keeping? Little has changed here since my last letter, apart from the trees in the gardens: autumn in Hoshido is the most beautiful sunburst of red and gold. I’ve enclosed a couple of pressed leaves for you, but they’re no substitute for the real thing - I know you’re busy, but you_ _have_ _to visit again soon so you can see it for yourself!_
> 
> _In your last letter, you mentioned an interest in studying how different countries’ banks were run, as inspiration for your own reforms (actually, you said, and I quote, that you were “woefully ignorant” on the subject, but somehow it’s hard to imagine you being ignorant of anything). I don’t know how many books you have on how the Hoshidan and Izumite economic systems work, but I managed to chase up a few if you want them. It was a bit of a quest getting them; I had to listen to the Minister of Taxation defend isolationism for a good half-hour before he’d let me have them (maybe they should change his title to Minister of Mental Taxation?). I’ll bring them with me when we come over for the coronation - again, unless you plan on visiting sooner._
> 
> _Ryouma will probably already have written to you about this, but it’s been decided that I’ll be serving as the envoy accompanying Shigure next month. We’d been going to send Takumi, as you suggested, but he has some kind of investigation going on here that he didn’t want to drop unfinished. Besides, I figured it would be good to spend some time with you and Camilla again - we haven’t seen each other since Ryouma’s coronation, and I have so many things to say to you both that can’t really be said in a letter._
> 
> _Shigure is doing pretty well in his studies; he knows a little basic Nohrian, and I’ve been teaching him to use a knife and fork. He’s also very musical - he’s been a bit nervous about moving so far away, but his eyes lit up when I told him about the piano! - and he likes painting. He’s a sweet boy, and very well-behaved; I just know he and Camilla will get along famously._
> 
> _Anyway, I know how busy you are, so I’ll not take up any more of your time (but don’t interpret that as me encouraging you to pull any more all-nighters; we both know how you get when you haven’t had your full eight hours). I’d ask you to write back soon, but I can practically hear you laughing at me for saying that when the coronation’s only a month away. With that in mind: please write back soon._
> 
> _All my love to you and Camilla,_
> 
> _Kamui”_
> 
> \- A letter from Princess Kamui to King Leo, dated October 24th, 1319. The princess was highly dedicated to her correspondence, managing to maintain lifelong contact with everyone she’d befriended during the war; this was a habit that would serve her well in her future career, so to speak. The bulk of her surviving letters from this period are addressed to King Leo; but a cache of her correspondence with Chieftess Felicia of the Ice Tribe was also recently recovered. All her surviving letters are now stored in the archives of the National Museum in Windmire.
> 
> This letter is addressed _“My beloved Leo”_ ; a small mark after “beloved” has been widely noted, and the debate over whether this is a blot or a comma remains heated to this day (it’s worth noting that King Leo’s personal diaries from this time indicate that he believed his attraction to the princess to be unrequited. In one entry, dated October 27th, he analyses the infamous mark at some length, before concluding that it must have been unintentional; he makes no mention of it in his reply to her). Regardless of the nature of their relationship at the time, they both wrote to each other frequently: up until the week of his coronation, their letters are never dated more than six days apart.

 

Kamui’s eyes watered as she looked down at the pendant, but this time it really was just because of the smoke.

It had taken her a while to build the bonfire - fire magic wasn’t as widely practiced in Hoshido as it was in Nohr, so she’d had to do it by hand. Not that this was cause for complaint, by any means; while of course she was grateful for the peace she’d restored to Hoshido, she’d begun to feel a peculiar restlessness growing in her ever since, something akin to stir-craziness. She credited it to a lack of physical activity - she still sparred with Hinoka whenever they had a free moment, but there was something less-than-satisfying about bopping each other lightly with bamboo shinai, when she was used to charging straight through enemy formations, trampling entire legions, or sending them flying with a single toss of her head. To that end, this past year she’d begun doing as much of her own manual labour as Jakob and Mozu would let her get away with (“Come now, milady, if you keep this up we’ll be left with nothing to do…”). Besides, there had been something oddly therapeutic about the repetitive motion of trudging around the castle’s gardens, gathering up great armfuls of coppery leaves, and dumping them all in one giant pile with the logs she’d laid out.

Once it was built, though, they’d burned quickly: it was a clear day, if a slightly chilly one. There was just enough of a delicious crispness to the air to bring Kamui’s breath billowing out in clouds, but not enough for her to have need of anything more cumbersome than a short haori over her hakama. She was, however, wearing socks; normally this was a layer she reserved for only the coldest weather, since most footwear chafed or made the soles of her feet itch, but Sakura had knitted them specially for her, and Kamui could never say no to her little sister. Besides, Sakura had stitched a dragon-scale pattern into them, and the toes had been shaped into pointy dragon claws, and that in itself made them too cool to ever take off.

When she was satisfied that the flames burned hot enough - which she’d checked using the popular scientific method of recklessly waving her hand in front of them, crying out the rudest Hoshidan word she knew ( _“Oshiri!”_ ), and sucking on her burning fingertips for a few minutes - she had taken out the pendant.

Generally, Kamui avoided looking at Azura’s pendant, much less touching it; it felt heavier in her hand than she’d expected it would. The blue stone set in its centre wasn't like the glassy shards of lapis or dragonstone she saw at the market, adorning jewellery or kanzashi; this one glowed with a soft, pulsing light that almost seemed alive. It reminded her of nothing so much as her own dragonstone, the one that hung in a pouch around her neck, under her clothes, even now. The one that Azura had given to her, to help her retain her humanity.

Of course, it also reminded her of another watery blue light, in another time. She fought to repress the image of the agonised smile on Azura’s face, in the seconds before her entire body fell apart in a cascade…

Kamui shut her eyes tight, squeezing until the picture broke up, leaving only a faint lime-green afterimage of the bonfire. When she reopened them, the pendant still sat in her palm, the gold winking smugly at her in the firelight. Her fingers clamped around it, as she reminded herself why she was here: taking a deep breath, she drew her fist back and cast the pendant, with all the force she could muster, into the heart of the flames.

“It’s over now, Azura,” she whispered, as the smoke billowed up to shroud it with a comforting crackle. “I just wish you could’ve done this yourself.”

She hadn’t ever actually visited Azura’s grave. Everyone else had, at the funeral ceremony held for her and Mother, but to Kamui, seeing the grave would have felt too final: if she saw where their remains were kept, there would be no getting past the fact that they were truly gone. This, to her, was Azura’s true funeral: a friend in the garden on a fine day, disposing of the cursed artefact that had killed her. A moment to celebrate, rather than to mourn. Azura was free to rest in the knowledge that nobody else would suffer as she had. Her bloodline was safe; her _son_ was safe. The very thought of little Shigure wearing that pendant, risking his life every time he sang along to his usual lullaby in his piping infant voice, made Kamui’s blood run cold. But, thank all the gods, he never would now.

“Aunt Kamui? What’s the fire for?”

Her musings were interrupted by the arrival of the boy himself, accompanied by her youngest siblings, waving to her from his vantage point atop his uncle’s shoulders.

“Hey, Shigure.” Kamui’s grin was half prompted by the sight of his earnest little face, so like his mother’s, and half by her relief at having finished her errand. “Wow, you’re high up.”

“I’m a sky knight. Like Aunt Hinoka.” He emphasised the statement by brandishing a tree branch, which Kamui guessed was meant to be a naginata.

“I’m the pegasus,” Takumi explained, without a hint of embarrassment. For now, at least; much as he enjoyed playing games with his nephews, the things they got him doing still made for prime teasing material when taken out of context.

“We saw the bonfire from the window,” Sakura piped up. She was clutching a fold of Takumi’s sleeve between finger and thumb, as she always did with at least one of her siblings at any given moment these days; it was a habit she’d picked up shortly after the war ended. “D-did you build it for toasting mochi?”

Kamui very nearly managed not to laugh at the obvious anticipation in Sakura and Shigure’s eyes. Very nearly.

“Yeah, we can toast some. Oh, but do pegasi eat mochi?” she asked, turning to Takumi.

“This one does,” he said flatly.

Mochi on toast was a secret Mozu had taught them during the war, and made for the very best comfort food. The mochi was heated on sweetened kawara senbei crackers, until it was brown and crackly on the outside, and melted soft on the inside; and the four of them sat on a blanket of sun-dappled grass and fallen leaves, idly enjoying the food, and the wash of warm colours all around them, and the simple fact that they were all here together.

“So what else have you been doing today, besides riding your pegasus?” Kamui asked Shigure, between mouthfuls.

“Lessons, mostly,” he said absently, as he searched about for something to wipe his sticky fingers on. Sakura produced a hand towel from the satchel on her hip, and began gently dabbing at the blobs of molten mochi on his face and hands with it.

“We tried learning a bit of N-Nohrian together today,” she elaborated. “It was a bit t-tricky, but he should know enough to get by in time for the c-coronation, at least.”

Kamui felt a pang at the return of Sakura’s stutter; it was always there to trip her up occasionally, but grew more pronounced whenever she was anxious about something.

“Hey, it’s not like we’re never going to see each other again,” said Kamui, a little uncertain whether she was trying to reassure Sakura or herself. “I mean, I’m only staying until Shigure and Kaze get settled. And they’ll be coming back to us after that, for visits. Leo actually suggested we have Shigure back next autumn for Shichi-Go-San.”

“Oh, how _generous_. - I don’t get why he has to be packed off to Nohr anyway,” put in Takumi. “I mean… I get it in that he’s next in line and all. But why can’t we just send him over when King Leo actually does die?”

“Something about wanting him to be raised in the culture he’s going to end up ruling, I think?” Kamui wasn’t entirely sure of all the particulars herself.

It was surreal to think about, though; in just over a month's time, she’d be back in Windmire, watching Leo kneel to receive a crown he’d been third in line for the last time she was there. She hadn’t seen him or Camilla in person since Ryouma’s coronation, more than half a year ago. Leo wrote regularly, but his letters always spoke chiefly of the work he was doing, or of the books on law and economics he was reading to compensate for not having been trained since birth to rule, as Xander had been. He held fast to these clinical accounts, his personal feelings limited to political opinions, academic observations, or light quips; to some degree, it was how he’d always written, but now it seemed like he was going out of his way to avoid talking about how he was doing. Kamui was inclined to wonder how much of that was a concerted effort to keep her from worrying about him, or from feeling guilty that she’d robbed him of his siblings and forced the crown on him. If it was, it didn’t work.

Camilla didn’t write at all, but occasionally Leo’s letters came with a knit cap or scarf that smelled faintly of her perfume. Kamui would sit with her face pressed into it, imagining that the soft yarn was her sister’s hair, spilling across her shoulder as she drew Kamui into one of her patented bear-hugs; and that when she lifted her head, Leo would be there, brandishing his usual smirk and a sarcastic remark, in a bid to retain some semblance of his dignity before they both pulled him into the hug as well. Opening her eyes again, to find herself alone in her room, always stung so bitterly that Kamui had yet to bring herself to ever actually wear any of the things Camilla knitted.

But, as of this morning, it had been arranged that she would soon have _plenty_ of time to catch up with them.

Sakura grew a bit forlorn at the thought. “It’s still g-going to be weird without all of you around the place.” 

“I’m going to miss you too, little one.” Kamui squeezed her sister’s shoulder in a way that she hoped was reassuring; but it occurred to her, too late, that now Sakura could probably feel her hand shaking. “And you, majestic pegasus.”

Sakura tittered into her sleeve at that, and even Takumi snorted. Kamui had to bite back a sigh of relief, as the clouds circling over them began to part; for now, at least.

“Anyway, does anyone else want more, or…?” Kamui asked the group at large, as she began preparing another toasted mochi for herself.

“I wonder if I might have some, if there’s enough left,” said Kaze, appearing behind them from gods only knew where. Takumi let out a yelp, to Sakura and Shigure’s great amusement; Kamui herself nearly dropped the senbei into the bonfire.

“Huh, glad my heart attacks are so entertaining,” he huffed, his tone dissonant with the amused smile on his own face. Kaze, on the other hand, looked genuinely apologetic.

“Ah, forgive me, milord. I’ll try to announce myself less jarringly next time.” He inclined his head in a little bow.

“It’s, it’s fine. Anyway, quit it with the keigo; you’re not a servant anymore,” Takumi pointed out.

Kaze opened his mouth as if he was about to apologise again; but, at the sight of Takumi’s raised eyebrow, settled for a nod instead.

“S-so you’re done with your errands, then,” Sakura piped up.

“I’m sorry it took so much longer than expected. Thank you for watching him.” Kaze turned to Shigure. “Were you good for your aunt and uncle?”

“He’s been pretty great,” said Takumi.

Shigure nodded emphatically. “I didn’t even use the spurs on him.”

Kaze gave Takumi a questioning glance. Takumi let out an embarrassed little cough. “He was being a sky knight. I was the pegasus.”

“Ah, I see.” Kaze nodded sagely, with only the faintest hint of amusement; he was probably a lot more amused beneath the surface, but this reaction seemed to set Takumi at ease.

“Will there be pegasuses in Nohr?” Shigure asked, reaching out to be picked up. Kamui nodded, as Kaze lifted his son onto his hip with one hand, and took his senbei from her with the other.

“They’re a bit different to the ones you get here, though,” she said. “Their feathers are black, and you call them ‘falcons’.”

“That’s weird,” Shigure mused. “A falcon’s a bird. They should use that word for a kinshi, not a pegasus.”

“They don’t have kinshi in Nohr,” Kamui admitted, and immediately wished she hadn’t; the little boy’s face crumpled. “Oh, but they have wyverns.”

He tilted his head quizzically to one side. “What’s a wyvern?”

“It’s sort of like a mini dragon,” Kamui explained. Shigure’s eyes lit up at that.

“And, with two words, you’ve sold the trip to him,” Kaze remarked, trying awkwardly to eat the mochi with one hand. But his tone was just a little too light now, compared to what it usually was; his eyes weren’t narrowed in a smile, so much as he was smiling to hide that his eyes had already narrowed. The pit of Kamui’s stomach twisted; while she and her siblings had been sitting here, talking about how much they would miss each other, this whole business would be harder on Kaze than anyone else. He was the one faced with the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a foreign country, where he had only recently been held as a prisoner of war, and almost executed; and where his dead wife had spent the most miserable years of her life, not to mention her last moments.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked. “I mean, if you’re not, we can probably work something else out.”

“No, it’s fine. I admit, I had some misgivings at first, but I feel better for knowing you and the others will be there. I think a steady supply of Jakob’s drop scones could see me through most things.” And there was that smile again, his mouth struggling to keep up with his eyes. “I shall have to redouble my training while I’m gone; else I may gain some weight before we all see each other again.”

Takumi laughed at that, but Sakura looked a little concerned; presumably she’d noticed as well.

“How’s Oboro taking it?” Kamui asked, quickly seizing on the first topic she could think of to change the subject to.

Takumi grimaced. “She’s started on our outfits already. For the coronation. I think it’s probably a coping mechanism, but…”

“I hope she’s not overworking herself?” said Sakura.

“Nah, I’ve served as her clothes-horse before. Nine variations on the same basic design isn’t anything like as big a workload as this year’s winter line…”

From there, the topic of conversation turned to Takumi’s horror stories about fabric merchants trying to pass calico off as silk (“Not to mention the weird stains on it. They said it was a print, but Oboro was all ‘last I checked, fabric dye isn’t supposed to smell like raw meat…’”), and ridiculous customers demanding rush orders on full jūnihitoe. Everyone was in stitches by the time the fire had died down, and the evening chill began to set in.

“We should p-probably head inside.” For once, Sakura’s stutter was the result of her teeth chattering, rather than anxiety.

The others concurred (save for Shigure, who had fallen asleep on Kaze’s shoulder), and made to leave, while Kamui hung back to extinguish the bonfire.

“Um, do you need any help with it?” Sakura offered. Kamui shook her head.

“Sweet of you to offer, but it’s fine. Save me a seat at dinner, though?”

Sakura nodded in a single swift jerk, a tongue-in-cheek imitation of a soldier being given orders, and ran to catch up with the others. Kamui watched her retreating back for a moment, and turned back to the dying embers with an irrepressible smile. The memory of this day would be a bittersweet one, given how long it would be before they were all together again, but it was one she would carry with her in the months ahead.

The last remnants of the fire were easily doused with water gathered from the ornamental stream. Once the charred wood had stopped smoking, Kamui turned to head back indoors herself; but paused upon seeing a glint out of the corner of her eye.

Yellow gold, brilliant in the light of the setting sun, not in the least dimmed by the flames she’d cast it into.

Kamui’s vision locked onto the pendant; it sat exactly where she’d left it, and perfectly intact.

Gingerly, she reached out, and tapped it with a fingertip; it was quite cool. The gem at its heart continued to pulse quietly to itself, almost nonchalantly. She lifted it out of the pyre; little melted fragments of chain fell away from it, ruined.

Kamui stood frozen for several minutes. Faintly, she could hear a voice calling to her that might have been Ryouma’s, but it sounded like it was coming from leagues away. Swallowing hard, she stowed the pendant in the neck pouch that held her dragonstone. She managed to affix a smile to her face as she headed in to dinner, but somehow she doubted she’d feel much like eating.

 

* * *

  

“More soup?”

The question startled Kamui out of her reverie, like being suddenly woken from a deep sleep. It took her a few moments of blinking owlishly to register Mozu kneeling by the tetsubin on the fire, ladle in hand and head tilted quizzically to one side.

“Argh, I’m sorry. My head was miles away. Thanks, Mozu.” Kamui nodded apologetically. In truth her head was little over a foot away, her thoughts circling around the pouch tucked into her hakamashita; it had been two weeks since she’d tried to dispose of the pendant, and its weight still hung heavily on her.

Mozu still looked concerned, but didn't pass comment. She lifted the lid of the tetsubin, unfurling a plume of steam that filled the entire room with the glorious aroma of chicken stock and daikon, and ladled out four bowlfuls. The two biggest portions she passed to Kamui; of these, Kamui kept one for herself, and got up to bring the other to the Rainbow Sage’s bedside, pausing to prop him up a little higher on his pillow. He laughed contentedly as he took his bowl from her.

“Hoo, I feel better already. Do you always keep such a rejuvenating table, little dragon?” he asked, stirring the broth and blowing on it.

“Courtesy of Master Chef Mozu, yes.” Kamui grinned, between spoonfuls; she didn't have to turn to Mozu to know how pink her ears must have gone. “But wait, ‘little dragon’? How did…?”

The Sage chortled again. “Did you forget? I know everything.”

As always, Kamui couldn’t quite tell whether he was joking.

He took the spoon out of his soup, licked the broth off the end, and then began sipping the rest delicately from the bowl itself. “Ah, that really is beautiful eating. Warms you up from the inside.”

Mozu watched until he was done, then got up and took the empty bowl from him. “I’ll go see if Jakob’s done chopping the wood yet. Then we can get your outside warmed up too.”

“Oho, I _am_ being looked after! You have my thanks, Miss Mozume. Be sure to pass them on to him as well, won’t you?” He nestled a bit further down into the pillows, leaving Mozu to puzzle, wide-eyed, over how he’d known her full name as she headed outside, soup bowls in hand. “As do you, of course, princess.”

“I’m just relieved we arrived in time,” Kamui said sheepishly. “I’m sorry for not visiting sooner.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself with _that_ ,” he said airily, waving his hand as if he was swatting a fly away. “You’ll have had a lot on your plate this past year, I’m sure; and not all of it as nice as that soup.”

Well, that much was certainly true. She’d meant to visit the Sage months ago, but what with the rebuilding effort, the plans for Ryouma’s coronation, and then the task of preparing Shigure for the move to Windmire, she hadn’t found the time until now. When they’d finally made port in Notre Sagesse, they had found the Sage bedridden and at death’s door; he still looked pretty frail, sitting there, but the colour had come back to his face, and he laughed almost constantly.

“Speaking of which, I’ve been meaning to ask. How are you adjusting to your newfound heritage?” he asked pleasantly, as if out of a desire to distract Kamui from her concern for him, more than anything else.

“As a Hoshidan?” Kamui asked, confused. She still hadn’t learned the finer points of Hoshidan culture, and her grasp of the language was still a little broken, but it had been five years now since she’d met her birth family.

“As a dragon.”

“Oh.” The question was surprisingly difficult to answer. Her hand went, instinctively, to the pouch hanging from her neck; the one that now held both her dragonstone and Azura’s pendant. “It’s… pretty neat, I guess. I mean, it’s given me a few new ways to make myself useful.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself,” he noted. It was difficult to tell whether his smile was supposed to be amused or reassuring.

“I suppose I am, at that,” Kamui admitted. She began absently pushing her soup around with her spoon. “I just… sometimes I get these… urges, I guess you’d call them. It feels a little like how I used to feel when I wasn’t allowed outside, as a child. But back then, I could let it out by running around the halls, or by practicing my swordplay. Whereas now…”

“Whereas now, you feel like the only thing that will sate you is going on a destructive rampage, in dragon form,” the Sage finished simply.

“That’s… exactly it, actually. But how do you…?”

The Sage hooted another laugh. “It’s a long and very convoluted story, but suffice to say I’ve spent a good deal of time studying the First Dragons. They’re the reason I went to all the bother of forging the Divine Weapons, after all.”

Kamui choked on her soup. “You made the Divine Weapons? But they’re hundreds of years old!”  
“What can I say? The sea air must agree with me.” The Sage chuckled to himself again. “In any case, this restlessness is a burden all dragons must bear. It’s usually nothing to worry about at your age; indeed you may die of old age before it gets any worse. But the important thing is to make sure you don’t let your more destructive urges go unchecked.”

“Wait, when you say, ‘before it gets any worse’…?” Kamui trailed off, a little afraid to finish the question.

The Sage’s smile faded a little. He paused a moment, debating internally whether to answer her anyway, before deciding in favour. “As I say, it may not be anything for you to worry about; but I suppose it’s always better to be educated on any subject than not. Tell me, little one, how familiar are you with the concept of ‘draconic degeneration’?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned in a few sagas,” Kamui said slowly. Dread began to pool in her stomach, as it came back to her. “It was an… affliction of the mind, that turned the Archanean manaketes into feral dragons.”

The Sage nodded. “And it affected the First Dragons in much the same way. Over the course of their long lives, their grip on their more destructive instincts became more and more tenuous. Most of them shed their physical forms, and ascended as spirits before they could lose themselves completely; but those that remained… well, you can imagine.”

Kamui nodded grimly, remembering the coloured plates in the books she and Leo had read when they were small, of the Hero-King and the dark dragon. They had both pored over the inked dragon, with its darkly iridescent wings and its open mouth displaying fangs the size of the Hero-King’s sword, with a kind of morbid fascination. During the day, they would reenact the legend’s events in their games, and fight bitterly over who got to play the dragon; but then, by night, their dreams would be full of flames and talons and teeth. It had somehow never occurred to Kamui that the dragon had been a living thing, with thoughts and feelings and a nervous system, before now.

The Sage must have seen her shudder at the thought; the shadow clouding his face dissipated abruptly, and when he spoke again his tone was bright.

“Of course, there are ways to slow the process. Do you keep your powers stored in a dragonstone, little one?”

Kamui nodded, holding up the pouch. “Having the stone on hand does make it slightly easier to control myself, now that you mention it. I mean, not only my instincts, but my temper as well.”

The Sage laughed again. “That’s often the way, yes.”

“I don’t suppose there are any other precautions I could take, though?” Kamui asked, making a pointed effort to avoid her memories of her first transformation: she imagined degeneration would probably feel like that, but far more intense. It wasn’t something she wanted to relive, in any case.

“Well, maintaining a positive outlook certainly helps,” the Sage suggested. “Do you find that your destructive urges get worse when you’re angry, or upset?”

Kamui nodded mutely. They got worse whenever she felt anxious, as well; even now, there was a part of her that wanted to transform, smash through the ceiling, and fly away.

“Hoo, as expected. Doing your best to rise above it at those times is half the battle. Staying sanguine when dealing with those feelings is worth more than all the dragonstones in the world.” His smile turned a little sad, then. “But don’t let me frighten you with all this talk. The message to take away from this is ‘be aware’, not ‘beware’.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Kamui lied. “An ounce of prevention, and all that. Thanks for warning me.”

“In any case, let’s talk about something else,” the Sage suggested, a little too quickly. “Those retainers of yours have been out there for a while.”

“Mozu and Jakob? Oh yes,” Kamui’s smile now was one of genuine amusement. “Although I don’t think either of them’s plucked up the courage to do anything more daring than talk about the weather yet.”

“Ah, to be young again,” chortled the Sage.

Still, if they were out of the room, that gave Kamui a window to ask the question that had been preying on her these past two weeks. Even if his claim to omniscience had been a flippant joke, and he couldn’t answer it, he could still, perhaps, lead her to someone who would. But suppose he could answer it, and would choose not to? Whatever curse this pendant ran on, it was some very potent dark magic; it was probably an insult to him that she had so much as brought it into his house.

Worst of all, suppose he actually did give her a straight answer.

She paused for a moment, debating internally whether to raise it or not, before deciding in favour. She produced Azura’s pendant from the pouch.

“What can you tell me about this?”

There had been a flicker of recognition in the Sage’s eyes the second she’d taken it out, but he made a show of eyeing it critically, holding it gingerly between finger and thumb.

“This is the necklace your friend was wearing, the last time you were here,” he said finally; he was still smiling, but now it was a smile like Kaze’s. “It appears to be some sort of talisman, of the sort they used in exorcisms when I was young.”

“Two weeks ago, I tried to destroy it,” said Kamui. “I built a pyre, and cast it in. When the flames died down, the chain had melted, but the pendant wasn’t even hot.”

The Sage was silent for a moment, still studying the pendant. He traced the curve of the engravings with a gnarled, twig-like finger, lingering over the edges of the blue stone set in its centre.

“Well,” he said eventually, placing it back in Kamui’s hand and closing her fingers around it, “I rather think it would be best if you held on to this. You may find some use for it one day.”

“If you’re suggesting I pass it on to her child, all I can say is absolutely not,” Kamui retorted, a little too vehemently; guilt speared through her as she caught her tone. “Ah, sorry, I just…”

“I understand, little one.” The Sage’s smile was a genuine one now. “I’m not suggesting that either. But… humour an old man, eh?”

He yawned, then. “Same goes for that old sword of yours. You’ll want to hold onto that as well.”

“The Yato?” Kamui’s hand went instinctively to the Yato’s pommel at her side, where it was belted to her hip. Keeping one’s weapon in a position from which it could easily be drawn, while visiting a private residence, was quite rude, but she panicked if she didn’t have it on hand.

He laughed sleepily at that. “Oh, very good! You be sure to keep that with you. With any luck, you won’t need it for a while, but you never know…”

Kamui was about to ask what “for a while” meant, but he cut her off with a soft snore. It was difficult to tell whether it was genuine, or whether this was a pointed way of saying that the conversation was over. She sighed, and slipped the pendant back into the pouch, dropping a thousand misgivings in with it. Very quietly, so as not to disturb the old man’s rest (assuming he _was_ resting), she got up to put her bowl in the basin, pumping some water in to soak away the dregs; the soup was only half-finished, but she’d stopped feeling like eating about halfway through the conversation, and now the broth had gone cold and the rice had swollen into a soggy paste.

This being done, she went and sat back down by the fire, contemplating all that had been said; this conversation had raised more questions than it had answered.

If she had need of the Yato in the future as well as the pendant, did the Sage anticipate the emergence of a similar creature to what King Garon had become, at the end of his life? The Sage had mentioned that some of the First Dragons had degenerated; were they still out there, somewhere in the world? Had he foreseen that a day would come when she’d need the means to cut one down?

A terrible memory, made more so by this change in context, rose to the fore of her mind then: standing in the Nohrian throne room, with King Garon on his knees before her. He had fallen into a delirium as he died, but in among his ravings, one comment had stuck with her then, and preyed upon her now.

_“My… My body was destroyed. My mind… lost… Ever since that moment, I became something… Something…”_

At the time, she had wondered about that: whether to attribute these words to the ramblings of a dying man, or a cry for help in the face of some external force. But now, a far worse thought struck her: both the Hoshidan and Nohrian royal families were descended from dragons. It was what enabled them to use the Dragon Veins, and what enabled her to transform. But if they had inherited the powers of the First Dragons, could they also inherit their weaknesses? Had all King Garon’s erratic behaviours and tyrannical outbursts been the symptoms of degeneration? Was it an affliction her siblings could also fall to?

She supposed not; otherwise they’d all be carrying dragonstones, transformations or no. But Kamui herself… her case was harder to defend. The Sage had assured her that it may not be an issue she’d have to face, but on reflection, he was the one who had broached the subject. Perhaps her dragon’s blood was somehow more concentrated than her siblings’; perhaps it was a recessive gene, like her pale hair.

The Sage had also said she might be dead of old age before it happened. In the legends she’d read, the manaketes’ degeneration had happened gradually, over the course of their immortal lives. She’d also read that they had aged at a much slower rate, remaining children for centuries, so perhaps her own lifespan wouldn’t be much longer than a human’s; but if she aged at a faster rate than a manakete, would her mind deteriorate faster too?

Kamui hugged her knees until her knuckles whitened, just to have something solid to ground herself against. She didn’t really see any other way to interpret it: she would indeed have need of the Yato and the pendant again; not as a means of defending herself, but rather a means of defending others _from_ herself. She remembered all the war crimes Garon had committed, all the people he’d had no qualms about hurting or killing; was that an inevitable future for her as well?

Her train of thought was interrupted by a creak of hinges from behind her, as Jakob and Mozu reentered, now laden with stacks of firewood. She forced her face calm as she turned to them, a finger raised to hush their chatter and point to the sleeping Sage: his advice on how to slow the process aside, they both worried about her too much already.

She obviously didn’t do a good enough job, though; as Mozu set her bundle of logs down gingerly, she didn’t speak aloud, but raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“You okay?” she mouthed. Kamui nodded, with a smile she hoped wouldn’t noticeably lag behind the narrowing of her eyes. Mozu smiled back, and turned to Jakob. “D’you think he’ll want drop scones when he wakes up?”

“That old goat? Would he even have teeth enough to -” Jakob began, but fell silent when Mozu shot him a look, and an almost-imperceptible nod in Kamui’s direction. He nodded once, like a cadet before a drill sergeant. “Drop scones it is, then.”

He removed the tetsubin from the fire, transferring it to a trivet, and set about excavating the Sage’s kitchen for ingredients. While he was sufficiently distracted, Mozu turned back to Kamui.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she whispered.

“Honestly, I think I’m just a bit tired,” Kamui lied smoothly. “It’s been a pretty long day, for all of us. You most of all, I think.”

This served well enough as a deflection; Mozu’s ears flamed. “Oh, d-don’t you worry yourself about me, Lady Kamui! I could do all this in my sleep.”

Kamui laughed quietly. “I don’t doubt it. You’ve been a godsend these past few months, Mozu.”

“Aw, Lady Kamui, you’re gonna give me a swelled head,” mumbled Mozu, cooling the back of her neck with her hand.

“Well, we’ve been short on staff. You and Jakob have basically been doing three people’s work between the two of you.”

“Hey, you’ve been pitching in a lot as well,” Mozu’s smile turned a little wistful at that. “I get what you’re saying, though. It is a bit lonesome without her round the place.”

She didn’t need to elaborate on who “her” meant. Mozu and Jakob were lovely people, and could certainly tackle the extra workload; but Felicia’s absence left a hole no other retainer could fill. Kamui’s stomach twisted tighter, as she fought to repress the memory of the circumstances that had forced Felicia’s return to her family’s lands.

“Do you still get letters from her?” Mozu asked, brightening.

Kamui nodded at that. “When she gets the chance, yes. Although sometimes her letters come a little late; her owl tends to get lost on the way over.”

“Like those dogs that start acting like their masters,” Mozu giggled. “Maybe I should start writing her too. It’d be a good way to practice reading the Nohrian alphabet…”

Their conversation was interrupted by the return of Jakob, armed with a buttered frying pan in one hand and a bowl of pancake batter in the other.

“Frightfully sorry for the delay, milady,” he muttered, as he put the pan over the fire and began decanting spoonfuls of the mixture into it. “And I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the flavour; there wasn’t any vanilla sugar to be found in the kitchen, and I confess I neglected to bring any myself -”

“Aw, it’ll be fine,” whispered Mozu, airily. “The Sage’ll just be happy to have something that sticks to the ribs, you know.”

Kamui sat in silence, watching the two of them, faces bathed in the warm glow of the fire, as they chatted amiably in hushed tones, with the occasional pause as Jakob flipped the drop scones in the pan: the faint flush to Mozu’s cheeks; the slight quirk in the corner of Jakob’s mouth; the unspoken fondness for her, and for each other, that seemed almost to radiate off them. In a way, they were family to her as much as her siblings were. The thought that a day might come when she lost control and lashed out at them, as she had Azura, was a lead weight in her chest. It was downright dishonest of her not to warn them, or to dismiss them from her service, with a final order to stay as far away from her as they could get -

Mozu interrupted her perseverations with a plate of fluffy drop scones, drowned in mulberry jam.

“Better eat up before they get cold,” she whispered encouragingly.

She was right, of course; Kamui’s punishing herself now would do nothing to postpone her degeneration in the future. If anything, it would speed the process; she should be aiming to avoid getting caught in downward spirals like this. She took the plate gratefully, and began to pick at the scones.

“Ah, don’t feel like you have to eat them, milady. The absence of vanilla sugar is _conspicuous_ ,” Jakob hissed, as hastily as he could without raising his voice.

But Kamui shook her head, smiling past her stuffed cheeks, and kept eating. She would find a way to prevent her degeneration, she decided, even if that became her life’s work. She would not allow herself to become a danger to these people; or to her siblings, or to anyone else. 

In the meantime, though, Kaze wasn’t wrong; drop scones could see you through just about anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'll start this one by apologising for the length of this chapter. I started it thinking "oh boy, only two scenes, it'll be a nice short one that I can bang out quickly", but then it just... kept going. She may not be as prone to perseveration as Leo, but Kamui still has a lot of things going on in her head, haha.
> 
> \- I’ve been replaying Dragon Age lately; it’s been an excellent source of inspiration (especially for fight scenes and party banter!), but now I’m slightly worried that this fic is starting to read Too much like a videogame transcript, haha. So yeah, if that’s an issue, let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
> 
> \- Heh, sorry about the length of the epigraph. I figured since I was doing fake historical sources anyway, it might be fun to include some primary sources as well as secondary ones; unfortunately, if those sources happen to provide the slightest little bit of leokamu content, all my self-control goes out the window, haha. Still, we've only got one more chapter of expositiony stuff after this before they finally get to see each other in person, and then I SHALL BE UNFETTERED. GO, SAVE YOURSELVES.
> 
> \- Hello yes I would also just like to take this moment to say that toasted mochi is The Actual Best™ and you should totally try it. That is all.
> 
> \- Regarding chronology: as I said in the last chapter’s notes, the war ended in 1318. However, since there’d be a lot of negotiations and rebuilding to get through after that, it would probably be quite a while before Ryouma would be in a position to have a formal coronation ceremony, so that didn’t happen until early 1319. Leo’s was held late in November 1319; Kamui headed out to Notre Sagesse in late October, and stayed with the Rainbow Sage until early November.
> 
> \- Speaking of chronology, his age didn't come up anywhere in the actual chapter (aside from obliquely referencing the fact that he'll turn five in a year), so: Shigure was born in 1315, about a year after the war broke out (since Kaze and Azura had known each other for most of their lives, my headcanon is that they got together quite soon after the conflict broke out; it was a shotgun wedding, haha). He was kept at Castle Shirasagi until the war was over. *Puppet Ron voice* what is a deeprealm, Harry?
> 
> \- … also… this doesn’t come up in the fic at all (aside from mentioning “Takumi’s nephews” here as a plural, and maybe a cameo in one of Hinoka’s POV chapters), but Shiro was born in August 1318, around the time the war ended; ergo he’s a year old here. None of the other Birthright-exclusive kids have been born yet, mainly because the war’s only just ended, but also because I don’t want too many fixed ships in this, haha.
> 
> \- I figured I should check because I wasn’t 100% sure about this, but fun fact: it actually is totally possible to melt gold in a regular campfire, never mind a big bonfire. Gold melts in any heat above 1064.18ºC; a hardwood campfire (such as Japanese maple, for example) burns at around 1100ºC (and that’s just if it’s pure gold; if Azura’s pendant was an alloy with some other metal, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for Kamui to expect it to melt at an even lower temperature than that). And I’m well aware that probably none of you came here for a physics lecture, but it’s my fic, and for some reason I find this stuff fun to think about, so. Yes.
> 
> \- A thing I notice in her supports is that Sakura’s stutter is less pronounced in situations she’s comfortable with (like talking in a very quiet setting with Takumi and Kamui, say). Hence, I’m not t-typing every w-word she s-says that st-starts with a c-consonant l-like this. I mean, not to mention the fact that I personally find conveying accents and speech impediments through onomatopoeic-style transcriptions vaguely obnoxious anyway; I don’t hardcore judge others for doing it, but to me it feels a wee bit like saying “my way of talking is the correct way, everyone else’s is the verbal equivalent of misspelling every word.”
> 
> \- Drop scones are like small, thick pancakes; you make them by dolloping about a tablespoonful of pancake batter in a frying pan and cooking it the same way you would a full-size pancake. You can have them with pretty much anything you want, but by me they go best with either jam or melted chocolate. They’re probably too light a note to end such a heavy chapter on; but given how long I take to write these, it doesn’t sit well with me to end a chapter on a completely negative note. Besides, Leo and Kamui’s retainers being locked out of the loop about what’s going on in their heads and comforting them with food is my aesthetic and I’m not sorry.


	4. Today's Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo posts a letter, and redecorates the throne room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry.

 

 

 

> _“_ ~~_Dear Kamui,_ ~~
> 
> ~~_My dearest, Kamui,_ ~~
> 
> ~~_To Princess Kamui of Hoshido,_ ~~
> 
> ~~_Sister,_ ~~
> 
> _Dear Kamui,_
> 
> _Regarding the remarks with which you closed your previous letter: lady, you wound me. To suppose that I would mock you for becoming so distraught at the thought of a pause in my regular supply of witticisms, even for so much as a month, does me a great disservice. Rather I am flattered by the implicit compliment, which I am absolutely certain was genuine, and which I’m definitely not deliberately exaggerating for the purposes of a flippant joke. All I can say is that, if you have little enough to do that my scrawls are such a highlight in your schedule, I have a constantly-regenerating stack of paperwork on hand here in need of filling out, which I would be more than happy to share with you at your earliest convenience; ordinarily I would prefer to keep such amusements to myself, but you caught me in a charitable mood._
> 
> _Joking aside, the leaves you sent me have proven rather useful: two of them I have filed away for future reference in my_ ~~_diary_ ~~ _field journal, and I spent this morning dissecting the third. The information I have gleaned from its structure has provided more than a little inspiration for my own forays in the field of bioengineering, so thank you for that. I’d go into the details of my research here, but then this letter would become a dissertation; you’re getting the full lecture as soon as the coronation’s over, though. Fairly warned be ye._
> 
> _You also have my gratitude for your offer of the books, particularly in light of the trials you had to brave to obtain them. Finding merit in opinions that conflict with one’s own is a necessary skill for anyone involved in politics to learn; but you know my views on that particular issue, and I think even I would have struggled to hold my tongue for that length of time. Some of the comments I find myself making in parliament would put my name in the social calendars of every assassin in the city, if the opposition only understood what I was saying._
> 
> _It’s a relief to know that Shigure has come to accept the arrangement; I am sorry to uproot the boy, but Camilla and I have no other blood relations on our father’s side. If this makes the situation any more palatable to him, tell him that I have already begun to make the arrangements for his education, and have procured a range of stringed and wind instruments for his consideration._
> 
> _For my part, I have little else to report: for the next few weeks, most of my time will be occupied by the coronation plans. I suppose I could talk about those; but then that would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it? Before I end this letter, though, there is one other issue I need to discuss, for which you have my apologies: it is a delicate matter, but a crucial one. When I received your previous letter, I couldn’t help noticing _ ~~_the first line_ ~~ _your comment about my sleep patterns. All one can say to that is that one is the king, and one will pull as many all-nighters as one pleases, thank you very much. However, since I recognise that the underlying sentiment was not one (ha) of intentional impertinence, I am prepared to forgive you just this once, and shall assure you that I sleep as often as the opportunity presents itself; to avoid another scolding from you, as much as for self-preservation’s sake._
> 
> ~~_With love,_ ~~
> 
> ~~_Regards,_ ~~
> 
> _Hoping this letter finds you and yours in good health,_
> 
> _Leo”_
> 
> \- A letter from King Leo to Princess Kamui, dated October 28th, 1319. The young king’s coronation took place on the 26th of November in the same year; he and the princess exchanged a further six letters in the weeks leading up to the event, in which they continue the pattern of mocking each other, in increasingly exaggerated fashion, for continuing the correspondence so soon before their next meeting in person.
> 
> The redactions were a frequent feature in his letters to her; thanks to advances in magical technology, it is now possible to read the text underneath with the aid of a Mímir Spyglass. However, the charm that grants the spyglass’s lens its truth-telling properties was not developed until the late 18th century; so to Princess Kamui, and to anyone else at the time, it would have been impossible to make out the words once they’d been blotted over.

 

“Leo! Hey, Leo!”

He didn't even have time to turn around before she barrelled into his side, bear-hugging him with a force that nearly tipped his chair over.

“Hello, Elise,” he mumbled weakly, as he reached his free arm over to pat her head. She released her grip a little (but not entirely) as she turned to examine the loose papers and open books strewn across the desk in front of him.

“Why’re you reading all this stuff about wheat? - wow, the words in this are really small.” She picked up one of the heftier botanical encyclopaedias; this dislodged a stack of papers overlapping it, and almost toppled an ink vial that her brother had, in a fit of mental alienation, left standing on top of it all. Leo scrambled to catch the bottle before it could spill.

“I-it’s a project I’m working on,” he said, as he hastily jammed the lid back on. “I’m trying to work out whether it’d be possible to grow crops on a large scale using Brynhildr. Seeing as the soil here doesn’t support many things grown the old-fashioned way.”

“Like you did with the plants in the garden? I didn’t know you could do that with food.” She began thumbing through the book in her hand (although, considerate girl that she was, she did take care to mark Leo’s page first). It was difficult not to laugh at the way she tilted her head to one side and tapped her chin with a finger as she skimmed, her little face screwed up in intense concentration as she mouthed some of the more obscure words.

“Well, as far as I know I can,” Leo gestured to the tomato plant on the shelf above him. “From what I gather, I can synthesise edible plants if I have a clear enough idea of how the plant is usually formed on its inside - although I’m still not sure how their nutritional value measures up when compared to the real thing. The question is whether this can only be done with individual plants, or whether I’d be able to grow an entire field of them at once.”

“But why wheat? You should do something yummy, like strawberries.” She held the book up, open on a labelled diagram of a strawberry plant, to emphasise her point.

“You can’t make cake flour out of strawberries,” Leo pointed out.

“Hee, good point.” Elise set the book back down carefully, but her hand lingered on the page, idly tracing the outline of the diagram with one finger. “If you figure out how to do this, it could help a lot of people, huh?”

“My idea was that we’d be able to set up a program where every household gets given a weekly supply of food rations,” Leo flicked back to the page she’d marked. “It’s not a perfect solution, but I figured it might do something to alleviate the levels of poverty in the underground, at least a little.”

“Leo, that’s amazing!” Elise’s hands balled into fists under her chin; he could practically _see_ the stars in her eyes. “Hey, if you need any help with experiments and junk, let me know.”

“What, you want to be my lab assistant?” Leo laughed quietly at that, out of fondness rather than amusement. Apparently Elise interpreted it as the latter, though.

“I could be a lab assistant if I wanted,” she pouted, which only made him want to laugh all the harder.

“Okay, assistant, bring me a cup of tea. And make it snappy.” he said loftily. Elise punched his shoulder.

“I’m telling Xander on you.”

“Hey, I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Leo raised his hands in mock surrender, but his grin hadn’t faded any. “If I need any actual help, I’ll let you know.”

“’Kay, great!” Elise launched another of her famous tackle-hug attacks over the arm of his chair, but since he saw it coming this time, he was better prepared to brace for its impact. He laughed, and ruffled her hair with his free hand.

They were both silent for a moment.

“Hey, Leo?” she asked the seam of his sleeve, finally. Her voice had gone a little subdued.

“What’s wrong?” He turned in his chair, as she pulled away and took a few steps back behind him; when he couldn’t strain his neck any further round, he stood up.

“I feel kind of bad for asking, but, um.” Elise stood, knock-kneed, in the centre of the room, several feet away. She pinched awkwardly at the fabric of her pinafore, twisting it around her fingers.

“Don’t be silly. You can ask me about anything, remember?” Leo was trying to sound reassuring, but the light didn’t come back into Elise’s eyes.

“Okay. I was just thinking. If you can do all that neat stuff with Brynhildr… How come you couldn’t use it to protect me?”

Leo’s blood froze.

Elise’s face was downcast, in such a way that her eyes looked closed. The part of her skirt that she’d been fidgeting with opened in a wide, frayed rip, exposing an ugly wound underneath: a single long stroke, extending from side to solar plexus, blistered as if something had sliced it open and then seared it closed again - the telltale mark of a killing blow from Siegfried.

The walls of Leo’s study fell away, the floor sinking downwards in a spiral, and reformed as the flagstones and hangings of the castle’s single-combat room. Elise fell forward as he ran to her, dropping to his knees before her. In vain he tried to cry out, to call for a healer, Camilla, the gods, _anyone_ ; but the words froze in his throat, coming out as a panicked hiss.

Leo lifted her head from the floor, to rest on the crook of his arm. It was more like cradling a broken doll than his little sister: the cheeks that had, mere moments before, glowed with good health and general _joie de vivre_ were now pallid as candle-wax, and he could feel the icy coldness of her skin seeping through his sleeve. Her little hands somehow seemed tinier than ever, as he chafed them between his own, as if that reflexive action would bring any warmth back into them.

He cursed himself in every tongue he spoke. Why had he not made her wait with him? Why had he not gone with her? Why had he chosen to specialise in dark magic, and not in the healing arts?

Why hadn’t he just stuck to his original plan?

Finally, panic gave way to despair, and Leo sat with her in stricken silence, his brow pressed against hers. His vision began to swim, and then to darken completely; but whether it was tears or fading consciousness that clouded it, Leo himself couldn’t have said.

 

* * *

 

He awoke, and was, again, in his desk chair.

Leo kept his eyes clamped shut, and began counting, to ten, to twenty, to thirty, as he fought to steady his breathing. He had just reached thirty-eight when, with a last, shuddering gasp of a breath, he was himself again.

It had been more than a year since Elise’s death, and so far he had achieved little to atone for it. The coronation had been scheduled to take place next month, because they only now had the budget to fund the ceremony: the war had eaten almost as much of Nohr’s capital as it had of her people. Over the past year, belts had been tightened at all levels of the feudal system until the deficit had been remedied, and people hated him for it. To the poor, he was an unfeeling opportunist, tripping over himself to appease the enemy for a few sacks of borrowed gold; to the rich, he was a naive upstart, out to snatch every last penny their estates produced in order to fund his childish ideas for reforms.

At least their contempt for him was bringing people together.

When he opened his eyes, it took him a moment to register Siegkat on the desk in front of him. Her face was inches from his own; when he lifted a shaky hand to scratch behind her ears, she began purring expectantly.

“Go get one of my retainers to feed you. I’m busy,” said Leo, but he continued stroking her head anyway. Her royal-blue fur was warm and silky, and focussing on the feel of it under his fingers did calm him down a little.

She meowed sweetly, undeterred.

“And I’ll thank you to stop sitting on my papers,” he added curtly, as he gingerly pulled his notes on the internal structure of wheat out from under her.

She hissed at him.

“And what would Xander say, if he heard you using that kind of language?” retorted Leo, tapping her nose lightly with his fingertip. He didn’t normally approve of anthropomorphising animals, especially when they were probably only responding to his tone of voice, but he couldn’t help feeling a little guilty when Siegkat’s head bowed to look at her paws forlornly.

He sighed. “You’re right, you’re right, that was uncalled-for. I’m sorry.”

She meowed again, insistently. Leo rose from his chair with a groan, rolling his protesting shoulders back in a stretch; this certainly wasn’t the first morning he’d woken with his head on his desk, and his spine had started threatening to develop a hunch. He unearthed yesterday’s tea-things, from under another pile of papers strewn across the faded ottoman in the corner, and poured out a saucer of milk for Siegkat.

“There. That’s all you’re getting until this afternoon, though,” he said, as he set it down on the floor for her. “Xander would come back to haunt me if I let you get fat.”

Honestly, though, it was hard to see that prospect as a bad thing. The responsibilities Xander had left him certainly weighed on Leo (the cat really was the least of them), but nowhere near so much as those moments when the knowledge would hit him, again, that his brother was no longer there to give him advice; to praise his progress, or to warn him away from potential blunders. He would never sit opposite Xander by the fire again, sipping tea in a comfortable silence, which neither would feel pressured by the other to break. He would never watch another opera with his brother, and come out debating with him over which production had been the definitive version. He would never retire to his room to find another book on history or law waiting for him on his nightstand, with carefully pencilled notes on the inside cover marking the page numbers for passages Leo might find interesting. And all because he had abandoned his plan at the last minute; he had acted as a child, and let sentiment hold him back from going with Kamui to cut the false King Garon down. By shying away from the prospect of watching one father die again, he had ended up losing two that day.

But Leo shook these thoughts from his head. Using his grief as an excuse to shirk his duties was one thing Xander would never approve of.

As the cat delicately lapped up her breakfast, Leo had an absent flick through the papers he’d picked up: the pile consisted of study notes he’d taken on Nohrian labour laws (to his relief, he remembered most of their content, even if he didn’t remember writing them); a curt note from Nyx musing pointedly on the constraints of the Mage Academy’s budget (a subject she’d given him merry hell about ever since she’d been hired as the Bursar at his recommendation last year); a form demanding that he cut government funding for the Mage Academy as an austerity measure (a suggestion which Leo had politely, but noncommittally, said he would consider carefully, while privately musing that he could raise the same amount of money if the lords who had put this to him would start paying their bloody taxes); and, at the very bottom, Kamui’s letter.

His breath flickered again as he skimmed Kamui’s swift, sprawling attempt at cursive. It wasn’t set in stone how long she’d be staying in Nohr - presumably only as long as it took for Shigure to get his bearings here. But, if the wording of her letter was any indicator, she was anticipating quite a long stay. Honestly, Leo wasn’t sure how to feel about that: she still dominated what few errant thoughts he’d been able to steal for himself in-between his worries and his nightmares, and the prospect of seeing her again was what had borne him through the process of planning this coronation. But, equally, he dreaded the moment when she saw the reality of what she was coming back to: in the letters he’d sent her over the past year, he’d had to gloss over several uncomfortable truths, and in her own letters she had asked several questions that he’d left pointedly unanswered.

In particular, he’d had a care never to mention Camilla in any great detail.

Regardless, he probably ought to send his reply off today, he supposed. The letter had arrived three days ago; after spending two of those days perseverating over a blot that he had initially taken to be a comma (which, if it had been, would have made almost everything he’d endured these past five years worthwhile; and yet, alas, it could only be a blot), he had finally put pen to paper during a five-minute break in his studies yesterday evening. The letter stood, sealed and waiting, on the mantelpiece, propped against the clock Niles and Odin had given him one birthday (a curious little wooden thing, carved inexpertly enough to suggest they’d made it themselves, in the shape of a Stoneborn making an obscene hand gesture). It was still only five in the morning, but sleep was no longer a friend to Leo. He pocketed the letter, and set out for the aviary.

 

* * *

 

His arrival was heralded by a fanfare of some thirty ravens, all screeching at him.

Leo felt a strong instinct to shush them: the noise was made all the louder for the silence hanging over the rest of the castle. It would be about half past five now, so the servants had likely risen already; but they would still be attending to the kitchens or the sculleries, until a less antisocial hour saw the rest of the household awaken.

“You’re up early, Your Grace.”

Leo started at the sound, and turned with a string of scrambled apologies to the eastern window. Laslow was perched sideways on the ledge, one foot dangling outside; some six or seven of the ravens had returned from making the previous day’s deliveries, and now rested on his arm, or on the windowsill beside him.

“Laslow.” Leo blinked for a moment, making sense of the scene. “I might say the same of you. Are you helping the staff here, or…?”

Laslow laughed - a light, refined laugh that well befitted a king’s retainer - and shook his head. “Not this time, no. I just like pestering the birds sometimes.”

“So I’d heard. Although it’s a relief that you really do just mean the feathered variety in this case.”

Laslow’s smile turned roguish at that. “Oh, I like to think I’m a connoisseur of the other sort as well.”

If some of the stories he’d heard were true, Leo wasn’t sure “connoisseur” was the word he’d have used for it. But Laslow had served him diligently enough this past year, in spite of everything; and, he supposed, what his three retainers did on their own time was their business, so long as it left no impact on him. He nodded curtly, and turned to gaze out the window.

“Lovely morning,” Laslow remarked brightly, and it was: clear and sharp, with only a faint mist rising off the frosty earth. The sun hadn’t risen - at this time of year, it wouldn’t for another five hours or so - but the sky was lightening to a predawn indigo, flecked with lingering stars, by which the landscape could be made out: the aviary tower was one of the highest in the castle, and on a clear enough day, one could see as far as the borders of Hoshido. Leo found himself wondering, vaguely, if Kamui was still asleep; at this hour, he supposed she must be.

But as he drew nearer to the window (forcing himself to focus on the horizon, rather than the ground), Leo saw how Laslow’s words and tone clashed with his expression. He was staring eastward too, but grimly, as if the sight of it had summoned an unpleasant memory.

“Something the matter?” Leo asked; Laslow whipped round to face him, so fast that Leo could have sworn the man was part bird himself. But he shrugged and shook his head, his smile restored as quickly and naturally as if it had never been gone.

“So what brings you up here at this hour, Your Grace?” he queried mildly. Leo was about to ask why Laslow still used this title, when Niles and Odin addressed him by name or as “milord”, but bit his tongue when it occurred to him exactly why.

“Just have to post this,” he mumbled instead, brandishing the letter for Kamui. Laslow raised an eyebrow archly, but didn’t pass comment. Leo resisted the urge to defend himself; doing so preemptively would look more suspicious than keeping silent.

“Right you are, Your Grace. If it’s bound for Hoshido, you’ll want one of the faster birds.” Laslow swung his feet back into the room and stood up, the movement scattering a few disgruntled ravens. He made his way to the wall of wide metal cages, and perused their contents thoughtfully. “Let me see. - this fellow is the speediest flier, but he tends to bite… perhaps this one here would do?”

Laslow turned to smile hesitantly at Leo; it took a moment to realise that he was waiting for an instruction.

“I shall defer to your superior judgement here, esteemed corvid whisperer,” Leo said sagely. Laslow visibly relaxed at that.

“Oh dear. I think Odin might be having a bad influence on you,” he laughed, as he unlocked the raven’s cage and coaxed the bird out onto his arm. The banter that went on within Leo’s retinue was one of the things Laslow had most struggled to get used to, at first: from what Leo gathered, Xander had been a little stricter.

These days, it was easy enough to see why.

Once the raven had been entrusted with the letter, they brought it out to the window, and released it into the morning. Leo watched it fly, languidly stretching and folding its dark wings, towards the wire-thin band of gold on the horizon, until long after it was out of sight.

When he finally turned away, Laslow’s smile was more sympathetic than amused.

“You’ll be seeing her again at the coronation,” he said encouragingly. Leo cleared his throat, praying his face didn’t look as red as it felt.

“Yes, well. Speaking of, you can go and do some more work on the preparations, if you’ve no other duties to attend to.”

“Ouch! - and here I thought you were giving me permission to take a break.” Laslow’s grin turned a bit rueful, then. “It probably is for the best that I crack on, though. Spend all the day staring out the window, and I’ll miss all the goings-on at ground level.”

His remark was probably just a reference to his dubious hobbies, but there was a curious wisdom to it. Leo still had much to prepare himself; both for the ceremony and for his nephew’s stay. Rather, for his stepsister’s son, whom he intended to pass off as his nephew for as long as it was convenient.

Azura was generally presumed to have been the result of a liaison during one of Father’s state visits to some foreign country or another, and for obvious reasons, her true parentage was easy enough to cover up. Leo was still uncertain whether Anankos had died with his father (Nyx supposed he had, but admitted it was too early to say for definite), but if the dragon yet lived, then as the rightful king of Valla, Shigure would likely be his next target: by having the boy brought over here, Leo would know straightaway if the wyrm made another move.

Besides, he hoped, having a child in the family again would be good for Camilla.

“That being said, Your Grace,” Laslow remarked, interrupting Leo’s musings, “might I suggest that our first port of call be a spot of breakfast?”

 

* * *

 

Leo generally avoided taking his meals in the great hall, but today he had business there anyway.

The room had been almost deserted when he sat down (in his usual seat, three places to the left of the head of the royal table, until Niles had corrected him), but he supposed word must have got out that he was eating there; it had scarcely been twenty minutes, and the trestle tables laid out below the dais were packed with gawking courtiers. A few were even bold enough to get up and approach him; Leo made an effort to be polite when spoken to, and kept his eyes dutifully fixed on the papers spread out on the table in front of him at any other time. Focussing on his work made him feel a little less like a harlequin or a dancing bear up on a stage, at least; normally it wouldn’t have been a problem, since Leo was used to living in the public eye, but he could have lived without the whispers of “upstart” and “bastard” echoing in the background.

“You’re allowed to take breaks for meals, you know,” said Niles, not even bothering to hide his concern as Leo opened a floor plan of the hall and began taking notes on the seating arrangement with a stub of pencil.

“This _is_ a break,” Leo riposted, reaching across the parchment for his coffee.

“Milord, the moon will wax, and wane, and wax again, ere you have need of these dark plans,” Odin pointed out.

“Yes, and that’s not nearly enough time to prepare them. Half of the people on the guest list are capable of causing an international incident, if I seat them in the wrong place.”

Assuming they even showed face; King Ryouma might accept Leo’s intention to start anew in good faith, but Nohr’s imperialistic history had not begun with Father, and many nations still bore the scars of the things his country had done. For a start, it was uncertain whether the leaders of Cheve or the Ice Tribe would be there, when their suffering at Nohr’s hands had ended only when the war did. Leo had granted them the independence they sought, as part of the reparations he and King Ryouma had agreed upon; Cheve had flourished in the year that followed, becoming a major trading hub between Nestra and Nohr (even if their diplomatic relationship with the latter remained frigid), but the Ice Tribe’s chief had adopted a policy of full-blown isolationism, and Leo hadn’t heard a word from him or Felicia since.

His puzzlings over the best arrangement were interrupted by a deafening silence, as a hundred whispered conversations died down, and all the courtiers turned to stare, wide-eyed, at the door behind the dais that led to the throne room, and to the royal family’s private quarters beyond that. Rather, they stared at the three women who stood in the doorway.

Camilla dropped a gracious half-smile on them, and glided over to take her place beside Leo. He could see the composure of both her face and Laslow’s falter slightly, as the man stepped forward to pull what had been Xander’s chair out for her; and as she raised her glass for Beruka to fill, Leo fought to avoid making the alarmed observation that she smelled faintly of wine already.

Equally alarming, although less surprising, was her choice of outfit. Despite the cold weather, she was clad in layers of filmy white lace again, as she always was these days: white was the traditional colour of full mourning in Nohr. Leo had switched to wearing the grey of half-mourning after the first six months, and was now back to his usual blacks and blues, as was the custom when mourning the deaths of parents and siblings; but Camilla had kept to white even now, more than a year later. At her throat, on a double string of pearls, she bore an ivory cameo of Elise’s profile. Again, Leo did not pass comment, although if the whisperings filling the air were anything to go by, he was the only one who didn’t.

“You’re up early,” he said, instead, as casually as he could.

Camilla laughed; an elegant laugh that didn’t show her teeth. “Selena told me you’d emerged from your study. I came down to see if it was really true.”

“I’m no more of a recluse than you are,” Leo protested, which only made Camilla titter into the back of her hand all the more.

“I suppose I have become a bit of one, at that,” she admitted, with a grace that made Leo feel guilty. “We’ll both have to be a bit more sociable once the little one’s here with us.”

“I’ll do my best, but I’ll make no promises I can’t keep.” Leo allowed himself a wry smile there, to cover the relieved one threatening to break out. 

Elise’s death had sent Camilla into a catatonia that had left her bedridden for two months; and even now, she still spent most of the day in her room. He was never sure what she did in there: aside from the occasional knitted garment she’d hand out for him to attach to Kamui’s next letter (Camilla never wrote to anyone herself), all he ever saw was the occasional maidservant, leaving with a tray of empty bottles and a very uncomfortable expression. Leo supposed this was to be expected; the moment he’d found Elise lying cold on the floor might plague his nightmares, but Camilla had been more mother than sister to Elise, and hers was a grief one would have to bury a child of one’s own to fully comprehend. The wound would never fully heal, and she could never completely go back to being the person she had been. But if Shigure’s presence could bring her even part of the way there, that would be enough to ease Leo’s mind.

“So talk me through this,” she said amiably, as she delicately moved his papers to one side to make room for her plate.

Leo shrugged. “It’s just the seating plan for the banquet. You wouldn’t be interested.”

But she was, as he discovered when she gleefully snatched up the parchment with an eager “let me _see!_ ”

It only took a cursory once-over for her to start tutting and shaking her head, though. “Well, that’s all wrong, for a start.”

“What is?”

“Kamui.” She pointed out Kamui’s allotted place, between Princess Hinoka and Prince Takumi.

Oh, gods.

“Camilla, the last time we argued with them over this, it kicked off a four-year war,” he pointed out. But she shook her head.

“Not my point, dear. Lord Suzukaze is seated up on the dais with us, isn’t he?”

“As our nephew’s father, yes,” said Leo doggedly. Wherever Camilla was going with this, it couldn’t be anywhere good.

“But Kamui is Shigure’s officially-appointed Hoshidan guardian,” Camilla pointed out. “She’ll be directly representing King Ryouma while she’s here. I just think banishing her to one of the lower tables is mildly insulting to our new allies. Carries the implication that we want to lessen the Hoshidan influence on the boy’s education, don’t you think?”

“That’s not what you’re actually thinking. I _know_ that’s not what you’re thinking,” retorted Leo. “Which is why it’s so galling that you make an excellent point.”

Camilla laughed again. “Of course, darling; every point I make is an excellent one. Now, if you want my advice, I would say to put her - _here_.”

She pointed out the little inked square representing the seat at Leo’s right hand. Leo swallowed hard, as he turned from her to face the real thing; ostensibly to look at it, but actually to hide his face until he had forced it calm again.

The chair at the king’s right hand was always left empty, as most of the chairs at the long table had been since Leo was a child. But this one had been empty for every meal since Queen Arete’s death: it was where the monarch’s consort sat. Inviting Kamui to sit there would be tantamount to proposing to her. Icy horror washed over him at the implications of Camilla’s suggesting it. Had she figured out how he felt about Kamui? Was she shaming him for the degenerate he was, or was she mocking him about it, in the same way she’d teased him about his childhood crush on Camilla herself?

“Think of it,” she said dreamily, interrupting his frantic attempts to string together some defence for himself. “The three of us at table, with you at Kamui’s left… won’t it be just like when you were little?”

Leo somehow managed not to thank the gods out loud. Somehow.

“Ah, and there it is,” he grinned, instead. “This was your true intention all along.”

“Darling, you make it sound so _sinister_ ,” she laughed; she seemed to be in good spirits, but the speed with which she drained her glass was still slightly worrisome. Now was probably not the best time to raise it, though.

“In any case, we’re not making her sit there. As to seating her at this table, I’ll think about it; again, though, I’ll not make promises I can’t keep,” Leo concluded, as he rolled up the plans and rose from his seat.

“Don’t tell me you’re going back to the grindstone already? - you’ve barely touched your black pudding.”

Leo shrugged. “I’m not hungry. Besides, if I’m out of my room for too long, people might stop thinking I’m a recluse. I have an image to maintain, sister.”

Camilla lavished yet another laugh at that; it was heartening to hear the sound again. Leo wasn’t entirely certain whether it was the prospect of meeting Shigure, or of reuniting with Kamui, that had prompted it; either way, in the month to come, he would bring that laugh back again, and it would be here to stay.

“Back to work, then,” he said to his retainers.

“Hrm?!” Odin gestured, dismayed, to the piece of toast sticking out of his mouth.

Leo sighed. “Yes, bring your plates with you. Just… try not to spill anything on my desk, okay?”

That seemed to cheer Odin, and even Laslow looked a little relieved as he picked his porridge bowl up; Niles, meanwhile, made a point of loading his own plate with as much toast and bacon as he could carry without the pile toppling over. Leo almost laughed, until it occurred to him that Niles didn't intend to eat it all himself.

“I did say I wasn’t hungry,” he huffed, but it was difficult not to smile at the gesture.

“I didn’t say I believed you.”

All in all, Leo mused as he made to depart, it had been a decent start to the day.

 

* * *

 

It was unfortunate that the only route back to his quarters involved passing through the throne room.

In all honesty, the layout of the castle was one of the reasons he generally kept to his quarters. Going out meant coming through here: through the room where he’d had to repress his grief, moments after finding the bodies, and keep a stiff upper lip as he began the diplomatic talks with King Ryouma, and as he wondered desperately what he would tell Camilla when she awoke. The room where he had stood in stony silence, as the dragon wearing Father’s skin ordered him to confront his beloved in the Woods of the Forlorn, and to return with her head. The room where he had been damned foolish enough to spare those prisoners, for Kamui’s sake, when following Father’s orders might have kept her in Nohr, and Elise and Xander alive.

That last thought he shook from his head with particular vigour. Leo had spoken to Lord Suzukaze only once before, briefly, at King Ryouma’s coronation; but he had thanked Leo for helping Kamui save him that day, and expressed his condolences, unprompted, for the loss of Father as well as Xander and Elise. Leo didn’t know the fellow well enough to _like_ him, per se, but he didn’t dislike him either; certainly not enough to wish him dead.

The throne itself loomed ahead of them. Even after a year, it was surreal to see it empty. Sitting on it would be still more so. The raised dais had lent Father a commanding presence, almost as if those who had an audience with him were speaking directly to the Dusk Dragon he supposedly represented; but when Leo tried to imagine himself sitting there, all he could think about was how much easier it would be to shoot him in the head with his guards that many steps below him.

In any case, he must have been looking at it for too long; Laslow broke away from his conversation with Odin to suggest that: “We should have it reupholstered.”

“Hm?” Leo was a little startled at suddenly being addressed.

“Well, it doesn’t look very comfortable, does it, Your Grace? At the very least, we should get you a cushion for it,” Laslow quipped. Niles and Odin snorted, but Leo only wondered how many times Xander had heard that joke already. It took him a few seconds to remember that if he didn’t play along with the joke, Laslow would know that that was what he was thinking.

“Perhaps we could add a cup-holder, as well,” he managed, finally.

 _“You hesitate. Does the prospect of taking your father’s place frighten you?”_ asked… somebody.

Wait, who _was_ that?

Leo’s gaze darted around the room; the four of them were alone.

“Something the matter, milord?” Niles’s eye narrowed as he scanned the room himself.

“You didn't hear anything?” Dread began to pool in Leo’s stomach, as the realisation began to dawn on him.

 _“Do_ I _frighten you?_ ” The voice was guttural, gravelly; it was the voice Leo had always imagined the dark dragon threatening the Hero-King in, when he and Kamui had read the sagas together as children.

“Well,” he said, with a shrug and a sheepish laugh, “I’m running on three hours’ sleep. I probably need a few dozen more cups of coffee.”

“A nap is what you need,” Niles retorted. Leo shot him a look that was trying to be sarcastically imperious, but with his nerves in their present state, it came out as “sincerely annoyed”. Niles cast his eye witheringly at the ceiling. “Coffee it is, though.”

Niles continued on ahead of his liege, and Odin and Laslow took their leave to follow. Leo exhaled shakily as he watched them go; much as he didn’t relish the prospect of being alone with Anankos, destroying the tablet in front of other people would lead to Inconvenient Questions.

 _“Why do you recoil from me? I believe we can be of use to each other, you and I,”_ the wyrm suggested.

Leo didn’t respond. He brushed it off as best he could, and continued looking for the tablet. Ahead of him, the door creaked shut.

 _“Your father made good use of the powers I gave to him,”_ Anankos continued, his tone almost casual. _“One might almost say that everything he became is owed to me.”_

It was difficult to tell whether he was trying to manipulate Leo or goad him. Either way, the dragon’s efforts were met with stony silence.

 _“If you ask it of me,”_ he growled; there was a hint of impatience in his tone now. _“I can bestow those same powers unto you. I can make you a greater king even than your father was; greater than your brother would have been.”_

Gods, Leo could physically _feel_ the dragon rummaging around in his brain; it registered as a piercing headache. His ears exploded with the ring of white noise, amplified to a deafening shriek. But he sucked his breath in through his teeth, and kept searching.

_“I can command the respect of your people.”_

His eyes fell on the ceiling. The tablet loomed above him, the sleeping face of Anankos smiling smugly down at him.

_“I can grant you dominion over all the kingdoms of men.”_

He felt a twinge at the back of his neck. No, in his spinal column.

_“The wisdom of a man thrice your age - ”_

Leo’s first instinct now was to run, but his body was no longer his own. His feet held to the ground as fast as if they had taken root there. His arms froze at his sides; his jaw clenched until his teeth ground achingly against each other.

_“ - Gold enough to buy the earth from the gods - ”_

While the wyrm whispered these notions into Leo’s mind as coherent words, he was also planting another in there as an abstract feeling: one wrong move - no, one wrong _thought_ \- and Leo would die where he stood. No strangulation, no forced suicides, no chances to fight back or think up a way out of this; no playing with his food. Anankos could simply command his heart to stop, there and then, and it would.

For Leo’s part, he struggled to keep his mind as blank as his face. His entire strategy here would have to be based on snap decisions.

_“ - Puissance enough that no man will dare to speak against you - ”_

Brynhildr still hung from its strap on Leo’s belt. Its weight at his hip was a comforting presence, but it did him little good now. He couldn’t even move his arm enough to unbuckle it, much less open it.

_“ - Kamui will fall before your feet - ”_

But perhaps he didn’t need to.

 _“Say the word, and the world will be yours for the taking.”_ As Anankos said this, he released his grip on Leo’s jaw.

Leo said the word.

The ash tree blasted its way up through the floor, shredding the carpet and shattering the flagstones. Anankos let out a blood-curdling roar, but was cut off as the tablet smashed into a rain of dust and fallen leaves.

Leo fell to his knees before the rubble, clenching and unclenching his fingers to make sure he really was the one controlling them. He couldn’t feel Anankos’s presence in his mind anymore, and with the tablet destroyed, presumably the dragon could no longer scry him; but that was a small comfort, when he knew the wyrm lay in wait beneath the earth.

The door banged open; Leo started at the sudden noise.

“Milord, the earth beneath our feet was rent asunder! Are we beset by some eldritch -”

Odin stopped in the doorway and fell silent, upon seeing the midden of crumbled masonry littering the floor. Laslow, running down the stairs behind him, didn’t manage to stop in time and ploughed into him with a yelp. They were in a tangled heap on the floor when Niles reached the foot of the stairs; he paused there for a moment at the sight of them.

“There are a lot of jokes I could make here, but now’s probably not the time,” he said flatly, picking his way gingerly over the struggling pair. “Are you all right, milord?”

“Yes, I just…” Oh, but how _was_ he going to explain this one, without invoking the Vallite curse? “ _Yes, I just had to blow this frankly very tacky piece of masonry to smithereens, because it forced itself into my brain, and was going to make me commit suicide so it could wear my skin like some sort of mask_ ”?

But he would have to explain it somehow. Aside from soothing his retainers’ immediate concern, he would need a story that could persuade his people to follow him to Valla - a people who were already ambivalent towards Leo himself at best, and still resented the crown for the last pointless war they’d been made to fight. That vision in the crystal seemed to suggest that Mother and Iago had known something about Valla; how had Father given them enough information to go on?

Leo swallowed. Niles was still staring at him, patiently giving him time to process his words despite the obvious worry etched into his brow. In the doorway, Odin and Laslow had managed to pick themselves up, and approached the crumbled tablet with narrowed eyes. All three of them were expecting an answer.

“Don’t trouble yourselves about me,” he said, finally. “That gaudy tablet Father had cluttering up the ceiling came loose. It could have brained me, if I hadn't sheltered myself in time.” He patted the tree’s trunk, in the same way he would Nosferatu’s flank.

Curiously enough, it was Odin who looked the most dubious about this explanation. Presumably it wasn’t dramatic enough for his liking.

“Anyway!” he continued, talking too quickly to leave an opening for Inconvenient Questions. “I have a few more letters to fire off, before I do anything else today. For a start, I’ve held off on my duel with the Mage Academy’s Bursar for too long now. I’ll need _strong_ coffee for that one. After that, I need to -”

“With all due respect, milord, I think we’d better get you something more medicinal than coffee,” put in Niles. Odin and Laslow nodded their agreement, when they looked up from examining the rubble.

They thought he was in shock, Leo realised. And perhaps he was, at that; but he couldn’t afford to addle his brains with brandy right now. If he hadn’t the means or the resources to order a direct assault on Anankos’s domain, he would have to find some other solution, and there was no telling how much or little time he had to do it.

He shook his head, with a smile he hoped didn’t look as shaky as it felt. “I appreciate your concern, truly. - look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll take a nap once I’m done with this particular bit of business, okay?”

That seemed to mollify Niles a little. “Okay, but make sure you do.”

Leo rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Honestly, at this point who’s taking orders from whom?” 

“Ah, then we have no cause to fret, Niles,” said Odin, although he was still looking at Laslow. “If Lord Leo fares well enough to assault us with his rapier wit, that bodes brightly for the state of his soul.”

Leo cast a last, sheepish look back at the wreckage on the floor. Even as his mind was still processing other, more pressing concerns, the whimsical thought struck him that it might look interesting if he left the tree sprouting out between the flagstones. He shook that particularly bizarre distraction from his head, and left the throne room. As he made his way up the spiral staircase leading to his quarters, he took stock of what resources he did still have at his disposal.

He knew about Valla. Nyx knew about Valla. Kamui…

 _Did_ Kamui know about Valla? They had spent weeks searching for her, or for her body, at the Bottomless Canyon, and found nothing; Leo supposed she must have fallen down when Gunter did, and then landed in Valla.

Except that didn’t make sense: if she had found her way back to the surface, and to Hoshido, why had Gunter not gone with her? No, it was more likely that some straggler from the Hoshidan force had knocked her out and dragged her off during the chaos of the battle. With hindsight and a sinking heart, he supposed Azura mustn’t have told Kamui all the details either; the look on her face when Azura had let slip that she wasn’t Leo’s sister had been one of confusion.

Then again, if she was at least partially aware of what was going on, Kamui would a valuable asset. That sortie in the Woods of the Forlorn had proven as much. She may not have as much of a head for strategy as Leo did, but she commanded a good deal more faith and respect from her troops than Leo did from his subjects. Granted, she wouldn’t hold much sway over the people of Nohr; they still thought her a traitor. But if she could persuade King Ryouma to send his army down to Valla, Leo could easily order his to join them under the pretence of offering aid to their new allies, latching onto whatever story they could feed the Hoshidans.

What he needed to do now, aside from alerting Nyx to the situation, was find a way to ascertain how much Kamui knew already, and persuade her to come with him to Valla to hear the rest. Obviously another letter was out of the question: there was no telling whether it was safe to mention Valla in writing. Leaving the capital to meet with her privately wasn’t an option either: when Kamui had returned his warp book, it was practically falling apart from the strain of transporting an army. It still technically worked, but if he tried to use it, there was no guarantee that every part of him would be transported to the same place. Whatever he did, it would have to wait until after the coronation. But, again, if Anankos had begun to move again, did Leo have time to wait that long?

He kneaded his brow with the hand not gripping the bannister. In the background, Odin was telling some story about his heroic exploits; it always genuinely impressed Leo that he was able to give such long-winded speeches as he walked without biting his tongue.

“The dread legions quaked in fear of my dark aura, and begged for their ill-spent lives, but my raging blood was not to be sated! Its power surged beyond my control, until all fell to writhe in the eternal hellfires of perdition…”

And then, it struck him.

A subtle way of finding out how much Kamui knew already. 

A means of ferreting out anyone else who might know something.

A way to sidestep the issue of the seating plan, even.

Leo could write his way out of this, just as he wrote his way out of every other predicament.

“Odin,” he interrupted sweetly. “How would you feel about helping me with a project?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnd we're back to Leo! Rather, back to being horrible to Leo (I did say I was sorry...). Hang in there, kiddo ;.;  
> Since I'm going to be away tomorrow, this chapter's a bit earlier than our usual update schedule (it's the 30th in Japan, though, so it technically counts, right?). Chapter 5 might end up playing a bit loose with the schedule too, since it's going to be pretty long; but who knows, maybe the one extra day in May really will be enough of a head-start for me to get it out in time for the 15th, haha.  
> Anyway, NOTESES:
> 
> \- THIS DUMB FIC REACHED 20 KUDOS WHAT??? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN, YOU UTTER SWEETHEARTS ;.; thank you, I'll keep trying my hardest for you!!!
> 
> \- Man, the trouble with using fake historical sources as epigraphs is that, as I said in chapter 2, Awakening canonically takes place in the 2600s; and yet the level of technology there hasn’t even advanced beyond what it was in Marth’s games, much less Fates. There isn’t really any realistic way to sustain “medieval stasis” for that length of time, especially not in a world that both lacks any sort of cultural obstruction to scientific development, AND has access to magic; by rights, Ricken and Henry should be casting spells by using the Thoron app on their smartphones (ha, would the weapon-breaking in this case be their batteries running down?). As such, I feel like the most feasible situation is that, in the centuries following Fates, technology continued to develop in a fantastical, pseudo-steampunk direction, and then the “Schism” Awakening darkly alludes to was some kind of apocalyptic global disaster that wiped almost everything out, whereupon civilisation had to start over with what theoretical knowledge of magic the survivors retained. Buuut this fic isn’t supposed to be sci-fi, so let’s leave it at that, haha.
> 
> \- I've mentioned the place a few times now, and it will eventually come up later on, so: the Mage Academy and the Knight Academy are referenced in the game, but not in any great detail; my headcanon is that they’re really more like some kind of adult military school than the kind of Eton-and-Oxbridge education real-life nobs got, but aristocratic families of any rank below “duke” still send their children there so they can learn the skills to make a name for themselves on the battlefield. During Leo’s reign (and Xander’s, on the other two routes), this approach is eventually reformed, and the academies’ curricula become more focussed on scientific research and law enforcement respectively. 
> 
> \- I’ve established that Laslow becomes Leo’s retainer after Xander dies, but the opportunity to explain where Pieri went never really presented itself during the narrative, and I wasn’t sure how to insert that information afterwards in a way that flowed naturally from anything I’d already said, so: the Watsonian explanation for her absence is that, after the war, she went home to her family’s estate to recover from the trauma of losing Xander (and also, I hope, to get some actual help for all her other issues as well); the Doylist explanation is that I have no idea how to write Pieri in a way that’s faithful to the character without Flanderising her murderous tendencies, so I figured it was better to just not bother, haha. It’s unlikely she’ll ever come up in this fic, but I like to think she makes a full recovery and is eventually able to rejoin society as a happier and better-adjusted person :)
> 
> \- Sadly I didn’t get to use all my headcanons here, so: as was the case in a lot of countries in the 14th century, white is the traditional colour of mourning in Nohr. IRL, blue was also sometimes used, especially for royal funerals, but since blue is already a regular feature in Leo’s wardrobe, I figured that wouldn’t make a huge amount of sense. In the context of this setting, the white is for a specific reason: since Nohrians typically dress in quite dark colours (if you look at the background characters in the underground, even the peasants are wearing dark browns or greens), the white stands out more and makes it immediately obvious during social interactions that engaging in typical Nohrian “gallows humour” would be inappropriate.
> 
> \- One thing I must stress, though, is that half-mourning, and the transition from wearing mourning colours to normal colours, is NOT A MEDIEVAL TRADITION. IT IS A VICTORIAN SOCIAL MORE. I INCLUDED IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE AN INTERESTING BIT OF WORLDBUILDING, BUT IT!! IS!!! NOT!!!! MEDIEVAL!!!!! I really can’t stress that enough. I see a lot of “medieval fantasy” suffer from the “all history is Victorians” mentality, and it gets on my nerves so much. Please, please research this stuff; as much as anything else, the process is really fun, and you learn all kinds of neat stuff doing it :D


	5. Tomorrow's Duties

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kamui goes on a road trip, is informed of various Relevant Issues of the Day, and takes the first step of her steady descent into slowburn hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: the first scene in this chapter features a fight scene with a) actual bladed weapons and b) actual human opponents, so. There will be blood.
> 
> This chapter is also just under 12,000 words, and features copious amounts of angst; but please stick it out to the final scene. The whole thing is building up to that.

 

 

> _“Public opinion of the princess, following the war, was somewhat conflicted. Some pamphlets were actually published in her defence around this time, crediting her with ending the war that had left Nohr bankrupt and underpopulated, and with dethroning King Garon, whose policies had become very unpopular in his twilight years; but others damn her for bringing the conflict into the city, causing the deaths of Prince Xander and Princess Elise, as well as an estimated 120 other casualties (although the exact figure varies from one pamphlet to another, and as such most historians consider these pamphlets a little unreliable as sources). Her portrayals in fictional literature, particularly plays, from this period, offer similarly exaggerated condemnation, often depicting her as a manipulative kingmaker, conspiring with King Leo to seize the throne that was rightfully his brother’s. There is no evidence to suggest either of them did any such thing in reality; indeed King Leo’s personal diaries express an initial unwillingness to accept the crown, and while he talks of Princess Kamui’s offering emotional support, assistance with general busywork, and the occasional suggestion of a new policy, she does not appear to have made any attempt to influence him for her own benefit.”_
> 
> \- From _An Onerously Protracted History of Nohr_ , volume 37, chapter 18 ( _“Concerning the Fire Emblem”_ ). As previously stated, the series is a secondary source, and an outdated one at that: while many satirical plays at Princess Kamui and especially King Leo’s expense were produced during their lifetime (indeed, the king’s diaries indicate that the couple had personally watched, and enjoyed, at least three of them), only one such manuscript has survived to this day; this being the classic _Leo II, Parts 1 and 2_ , by the legendary playwright Dunmere. This play, while intended as satire, has unfortunately been mistaken for a genuine retelling of historical events, and has perpetuated a number of misconceptions regarding the king’s life and character that remain prevalent to this day. Most famously among laymen, and infamously among historians, is the play’s portrayal of King Leo as an absent-minded recluse, who was fixated on his personal research and blind to the suffering of his own people.

 

“Is it always this cold in Nohr, Aunt Kamui?”

“The summers here are a bit warmer, but yes, it’s always a little chilly. You get used to it, though,” she said ruefully, as she untucked a fold of her cloak from under her and pulled it a little tighter around Shigure. He was already harnessed to her, but he clung to her sleeve to hold her arm in place across his shoulders; his poor little fingers were like icicles.

“It’s always pretty cold up in the air, as well. You might start to warm up when we land.” Hinoka had been silent for most of this stretch, out of necessity: while they were passing over the mountains, she’d had to keep all her attention fixed on the clouds ahead, for any sign of feral wyverns. Now, though, they were nearing civilisation again, and the walls of Windmire were faintly visible in the distance beneath them.

Honestly, Kamui still wasn’t sure how to feel about coming back here. The thought of seeing her siblings in Nohr again - of Camilla’s hugs, and Leo’s banter - left her positively giddy; but she had spent the past five weeks being made acutely aware of the fact that she was the _only_ person in her family looking forward to it. From her Hoshidan siblings’ perspective, they would be losing her again for several months, and Shigure forever -

“Um, Aunt Kamui? You’re squeezing me too tight.”

“Ah!” She loosened her grip around Shigure’s shoulders, with a sheepish grimace. “I’m sorry, little one. I guess I got a bit frightened when I saw how high up we are.”

He lifted his head to look quizzically up at her, then patted her forearm sympathetically. “It’s okay. Aunt Hinoka would catch us if we fell off. Or you could turn into a dragon and carry me in your claws.”

Kamui fought to avoid shuddering at the idea. It was unlikely to happen while she had her dragonstone on her, but the prospect of going feral while she had Shigure strapped to her didn’t bear thinking about. Unfortunately, in the past few months the boy had developed a fascination with dragons and wyverns, and his direct and indirect requests to see Kamui’s dragon form were becoming increasingly frequent.

“Can you spot the others on the ground?” she asked instead. He looked down for a moment, scanning the rocky wastes below them, and finally nodded.

“They’re just below us. I can see Uncle Ryouma’s hair at the front there.”

“We’ll probably end up arriving before they do,” said Hinoka. “Since we don’t have to negotiate walls or anything.”

It had been at Leo’s urging that Shigure was brought over by pegasus, just as he had stressed that they should skirt around the Bottomless Canyon, rather than crossing over it. He hadn’t gone into much detail as to why - “ _There’s been an outbreak of feral wyvern attacks there that I’m still investigating; in the meantime, it’s probably better to avoid the area,_ ” was all he’d said on the matter. Still, it had been one of his better ideas: from the ground, Nohr seemed a bleak wasteland, but from above, Shigure’s first impression of the place was a treasure-map of snow-capped mountains and dark, tangled forests. From up here, the prospect of leaving home behind to live in this grim country would feel like less of an upheaval, and more of an adventure.

Finally, the mountain range dipped down into moorland, and with it, the faint line of the king’s-road. It was easier to make out the rest of their family, and Kamui’s retainers (for obvious reasons, Hinoka had left hers at home), below them now. Most of them had travelled on horseback, or on Yukimura’s automatons. Takumi had made an especial point of not taking his kinshi; when Kamui had suggested it, on the grounds that it would get him there faster, he had retorted that that was the idea.

“What’s that thing?” Shigure piped up. He was pointing to a structure in the distance, a few miles west of Windmire; it was hanging suspended in midair, its spires only just visible rising from a moat of lightning-streaked clouds.

“I think that’s the Mage Academy.” Kamui recognised it, faintly, from an etching in the prospectus Leo had excitedly shown off to her once, before the war had broken out and thrown everyone's plans for the future out the window. “It’s a school where people go to study magic.”

He turned to her, mouth open in a wide O. “I could go to school in the sky?”

“Uh. Maybe when you’re older.” It was heartening that he was being so optimistic about all this, but Kamui was very conscious of the tightening of Hinoka’s shoulders with every little gasp or excited comment their nephew made. Of course, he had cried bitterly when they had first broken the news to him that Kamui and Kaze would be the only relatives of his to come with him, and he probably would again when he had to say goodbye to the others; but Hinoka was probably reliving the day she had lost Kamui every time the topic was broached. Or the day she had lost Azura.

“We’ll come back to Hoshido again soon, though,” Kamui hastily added. Shigure concurred with an emphatic nod.

“We have to. Nohr looks pretty neat, but it doesn’t have kinshis, or mochi.” He gave a rueful little smile then. “Or Aunt Hinoka.”

Hinoka nearly reeled backwards at that.

“I-I’ll write to you,” she spluttered, her voice a little clipped. She let go of the reins with one hand to brush the heel of it against her face; it would have been hard to tell by looking whether she was combing her hair out of her eyes, or drying them, but it wasn’t difficult to guess. When she spoke again, it was in a shuddering choke of a laugh. “In Hoshidan, so you can practice your kanji. It’s important for a king to be able to read both languages, right?”

“Yes please. I’ll write you letters every day. And Uncle Takumi, and Aunt Sakura, and Uncle Ryouma and Aunt Orochi.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll _draw_ one for Shiro, since he can’t read yet.”

Hinoka laughed again at that, but this time there was no mistaking the quiet sob behind it; Kamui squeezed her shoulder, unsure of how else to respond.

“Anyway,” said Hinoka briskly, gathering herself impressively fast. “We’re coming up for Windmire now. Should I land outside the city gates, or…?”

“No need; they know the three of us are coming by pegasus. I think Camilla just landed her wyvern on the bridge leading to the keep, the first time I was here.” It would be good to see Camilla again, Kamui mused; Leo hadn’t spoken of his sister much in his letters, and Kamui was more than a little curious about what Camilla had been up to since they’d seen each other last.

“Right.” Hinoka whistled to Ryouma, and gestured that they were going on ahead; he nodded, and waved them off. She spurred her pegasus on, and they darted over the crenellations of the city’s walls.

The streets of Windmire were still quiet, but not quite as deserted as they had been the last time Kamui had been here. A few guards had been stationed at particularly busy junctions, and the occasional street vendor could be seen peddling various wares (by the look of it, mostly food). The city may not be as lively as the market outside Castle Shirasagi, but the change was still heartening to see.

For his part, Shigure beamed down at his new subjects, waving politely down at the knights, the merchants, the -

“Hey, what’s happening down there?”

Kamui followed Shigure’s line of vision to a back-alley, where an altercation appeared to be taking place. Some four men, all clad in mismatched scraps of armour, stood blocking the way on both sides; their weapons - mostly axes - were drawn, and trained on a street vendor who stood in their midst, surrounded.

“Bandits,” she sighed ruefully. Things hadn’t improved aboveground as much as she’d initially thought, then. She turned to Hinoka. “Shall we?”

“I’m on it.” Hinoka steered her pegasus into a sharp turn, and they sped over the rooftops into the fray.

Kamui had to repress a snarl of disgust, as they drew closer to the scene. The peddler being cornered couldn't have been more than nine or ten years old: a little girl selling flowers to make ends meet, just as Elise had been, the last time Kamui saw her. Yet, even with her wares scattered across the cobbles, and so many knives pointed at her, she clung stubbornly to the money pouch hanging limply at her belt.

“I’m telling you,” she said, in a voice that wavered commendably little, “this is all I’ve made today, and I need it for food. If you want money, go bother some of the rich people coming in for the coronation.”

“She makes a good point, boss,” put in one of the brigands. The man he’d addressed the remark to rolled his eyes.

“Aye right, it’s a great point. Let’s all just waltz out to the king’s-road and start doing business there, with all those armed guards about -”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes the rich people come back here,” interrupted Kamui.

Startled, the bandits all whipped round to look up at her. Seizing her chance, the flower girl tried to duck past them, an effort which proved fruitless: the brigand nearest her scooped her up easily, lifting her over his head by the collar of her pinafore. The pouch fell from her grasp with a pitifully quiet clink. She screamed curses at him, beating her little fists against his hand and tugging at the fabric where it pressed against her throat. The man only laughed, and began to shake her. “Welp, I can’t hear any jingling. Guess she really hasn’t got any more cash on her. Still, I know a bloke up at the alchemy labs who pays good coin for fresh cadavers…”

His laughter was short-lived, though the afterimage of it remained frozen on his face: Hinoka swooped down and drove her naginata through his throat, wrenching it open as the pegasus sped past him. As his head flopped backwards, exposing a grisly wound, the little girl fell from his grasp and into Kamui’s waiting arms.

“Um, Hinoka? Where should we…?” As they ascended again, Kamui awkwardly tried, simultaneously, to soothe the girl clinging to her sleeves and hold Shigure steady in his harness, without letting the additional weight overbalance the pegasus.

Hinoka considered this for a moment, and then steered them over to the nearest rooftop.

“You two stay here until we’re done,” Kamui instructed, in what she hoped was still a fairly reassuring tone, as she unbuckled Shigure and very carefully deposited him and the flower girl on the ridgepole. “And keep your eyes covered. This’ll probably end up being quite messy.”

“Why did you say that?” Hinoka chided, as they made to charge their friends on the ground again.

“Why not?”

“Well, now that you’ve told them it’s something they shouldn’t see, it’s just going to make them want to watch it.” Hinoka skewered another brigand as she spoke; there was a faint echo of ghoulish, half-repulsed laughter from above, proving her point. “I’ll let you off here, if that’s okay.”

“Got it.” Kamui jumped down and drew the Yato in one swift, rolling motion.

The brigand who had been addressed as “boss” was the first to start forward. He raised his axe in a clumsy blow that Kamui easily deflected; to someone who had gone toe-to-toe with King Garon and won, this excuse for axework was practically an insult. She drove the blade deep into his solar plexus, and the axe he’d wielded so clumsily fell to the ground.

The final bandit blanched, and backed away a little, as she stepped toward him. One stroke was all it would take, and this whole business would be done and dusted. Kamui raised her blade over his head.

Inside her pouch, she felt her dragonstone join Azura’s pendant in pulsing against her heart.

Terror speared through Kamui at the sudden sensation; it was the way her dragonstone reacted in the moments before she transformed. Except, every time it had happened before, it had been a voluntary tactical move on a real battlefield; she had never felt like this during her sparring matches with Hinoka, back in Hoshido. Was the adrenaline pumping through her playing on her draconic instincts? Had her brain come to associate the fight-or-flight response with transforming? She fought madly to tamp it down; if she transformed here - if she ran the risk of going feral here - it would -

“Kamui, what are you -”

Hinoka’s yelp yanked Kamui’s attentions back to the fight, even as the axe was coming down; it stopped inches from her skull. The tip of Hinoka’s naginata peeked out through the man’s jerkin, before he fell forwards and the fight was over.

“What was that about?” Hinoka chided, as she pulled her weapon out of the bandit’s body and wiped it on his trousers. “It’s like you just froze up in the middle of the fight.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Kamui cringed. “I guess it just brought back a lot of memories of the war.”

Technically it wasn’t a lie, she supposed. Hinoka sighed. “Well, we’re both in one piece, so I guess it worked out. Better go get those two down now.”

She nodded up to the roof, where Shigure and the flower seller were still staring down at the scene, goggle-eyed.

Kamui laughed, a nervous jingle of a laugh, at that. “I did tell you not to watch.”

Shigure certainly seemed a little shaken, when Hinoka brought him down; he denied it vehemently, but too quickly, and in a voice half an octave higher than his usual pitch. “I mean, there _is_ a lot more blood coming out than I imagined there’d be, and that’s a bit yuck, but I’m okay, and you both looked really cool…”

Kamui dropped to his eye level (cursing internally as she realised she was getting even more blood on her hakama in the process) and stroked his hair. “Hey, it’s okay. Real fights are a horrible thing to have to witness; you’re allowed to be upset by what you saw.”

He stared at her, his amber eyes unnaturally wide, for a moment; but then his lower eyelids quirked up, and he collapsed onto her shoulder with a shuddering sob, clinging to her sleeve as she rose to her feet and lifted him onto her hip. She turned back to the little girl.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that as well, miss. Are you…?” She stopped short of asking if the child was all right; it was too obvious that she wasn’t. Horror was etched into her face too, but of a different sort to Shigure’s: this kind was hard, suspicious. Her eyes were narrowed almost to slits, as she trained them on the Yato’s blade.

Kamui glanced down at it, wincing internally; she had thought for sure that she’d cleaned all the blood off. But the blade was indeed quite clean, the gold reflecting little dancing lights over the walls of the alley. Looking back at the girl, she was still glaring at it: there was a strange light in her eyes, almost like a spark of recognition. Recognition and resentment.

Oh gods.

“You all right?” Hinoka asked her, finishing Kamui’s question. The little girl made no answer either way.

“That golden sword,” she said instead. “You’re Princess Kamui, aren’t you?”

She asked it in a tone Kamui recognised readily: it was the same tone Kamui herself had used, when she’d first met Mother and Ryouma, to ask for a quick execution.

“I am, yes,” she forced herself to say, somehow managing to speak past the feeling of her throat closing in on itself. “This is my sister Hinoka, and our nephew Shigure. We saw you when we were flying over, and we wanted to make sure you were okay.”

The child stayed tight-lipped at that.

“Here’s your money back, anyway,” said Hinoka, retrieving the pouch and holding it out to her. The little girl snatched it up, still glowering.

“I’d rather have my parents back,” she said flatly. She pushed past them and fled down the alley and round a corner, before either of them could say anything more.

“What was that about?” asked Shigure mildly, drying his eyes.

“N-nothing. Anyway, let’s get to the castle. The others’ll probably be ahead of us by now.” Hinoka gave Kamui’s shoulder a squeeze, in the same way Kamui had squeezed hers earlier. The sensation was comforting on a physical level, but did nothing to soothe the guilt roiling in Kamui’s stomach. But she swallowed thickly, and nodded.

“Yes,” she said, as she buckled Shigure’s harness to her again. “Let’s go.”

She would have to raise this incident with Leo, when she saw him. Not the bandit problem, necessarily, although she did wonder if something more might not be done there - in Hoshido, law enforcement was the Sky Knights’ main role during peacetime: they patrolled the city from above, allowing them to easily spot incidents like the one that had just taken place. She wondered, vaguely, if a force of wyvern riders might be able to serve a similar purpose here; then again, if such a policy wasn’t already in place, it was likely Leo had considered it already, and found some issue with it.

But no, the more pressing issue was that a child that age would have to take up work as a pedlar to make ends meet in the first place. There would be many other children like her, both up on these streets and in the underground; and it had been Kamui who had orphaned them. If she could do nothing else for them, she owed it to them to find a way to keep a roof over their heads and bread on their table, one that didn't force them to risk harassment or worse at the hands of brigands.

This was the thought she kept in her head, determined not to let anything displace it, as they glided over the walls and into the crater that formed the foundations of Castle Krakenburg.

 

* * *

 

Despite the detour, it seemed they had still managed to arrive before everyone else - including the inhabitants of the castle itself. The courtyard in which Hinoka had landed was deserted, save for the rows of guards standing to attention on either side of the bridge leading to the central keep.

Kamui and Hinoka might have been perturbed by the silence, but Shigure had other issues on his mind. When they set him down, he craned his neck around and around, scanning the castle - _his_ castle, Kamui realised; gods, that was a surreal thought - from every angle with a wide-eyed combination of fear and fascination.

“It’s awfully dark. Is the whole castle underground?” he asked.

“Most of it is, yes. The dark does take some getting used to, but you will.” Kamui was trying to sound reassuring, but her own misgivings must have shown on her face; he drew closer to Hinoka, hiding his face in a fold of her hakama.

Hinoka turned to Kamui, concerned. “They knew we were coming, right?”

Kamui nodded mutely. Admittedly, she didn’t have much idea of how this usually worked. The first time she’d come here, she had been accompanied by her siblings, and the guards had stood aside for them; the second time, she had cut herself a path inside, so to speak.

After some deliberation, she steeled herself to go over and ask the guards. None of them had made any move to greet her, nor to ask her business; the two nearest her, guarding the entrance to the bridge, stood bent at an odd angle, leaning over slantways to whisper amongst themselves without breaking formation.

“Well, our orders were to shepherd them in directly, so -”

“Shoosh, she’s coming over.”

They stood to sharp attention as Kamui approached. One of them, a man with a sizeable lantern jaw who looked to be around Ryouma’s age, offered her a polite smile that seemed rather fixed; the other, a woman in enough plate armour to outfit a wyvern, kept her face placid, but kept her gaze trained on a point somewhere beyond Kamui’s left shoulder. Kamui couldn’t shake the feeling she’d seen them before, although she couldn’t place where.

“Greetings, travellers!” the man announced, when they approached; the line sounded just a little rehearsed. “Welcome to the castle - our refuge of justice and beauty!”

“Um, sorry to bother you,” Kamui began slowly. “But we’re here for the coronation?”

“Ah, of course,” he said, with an emphatic nod. “We were told to expect you, Lady Kamui. His Grace sends his regrets that he wasn’t able to meet you here in person, but some last-minute preparations for the great event left him unavoidably detained.”

“Oh, I see. That’s too bad.” Kamui’s heart sank, both at Leo’s absence and at the implication behind the guard’s recognising her. But she kept her face courteously bright, mimicking his. “So… do we just go in, or…?”

“Our orders were to escort you in, if you wanted us to,” said the lady knight, speaking for the first time. Her tone was a little clipped, making it plain that she was hoping that Kamui didn’t want them to.

Kamui shook her head, with an apologetic half-smile. “Thanks, but we’ll manage. Besides, my br - King Ryouma and the rest of the Hoshidan royal family are still some ways behind us. They’ll need someone to show them in as well.”

“As you wish.” They both nodded once, and took a step to the side. Kamui gestured to Hinoka and Shigure to follow. Hinoka paused in front of the guards.

“Uh, where should I put this guy?” she asked, gesturing to her pegasus.

“Ah! feel free to leave him to us, dear lady. I shall see him escorted to the stables personally -”

“By someone else,” the woman interrupted. “The stables are enough of an assault course for you without bringing flying into it.”

He chuckled, then. “Right you are, Effie. Fear not then, ma’am, your steed is in capable hands indeed.”

Effie.

The knot in Kamui’s stomach tightened as she remembered. These people had been Elise’s retainers, once upon a time. She had only met them the once, on the battlefield, but even in that one interaction, the love they had held for Elise had been plain to see: all it had taken was one word from her, and they had both laid down their weapons on the spot.

Gods, no wonder they hadn’t looked happy to see her. Half of her wanted to turn back; to apologise for not recognising them sooner, for speaking so blithely to them, for letting her die, and die for nothing; but Hinoka and Shigure were hurrying to catch up with her on the bridge, sweeping her along like a current.

Or, she mused bitterly, as the pendant beat against her ribcage, like a grey wave.

 

* * *

 

The scene they were met with when they entered the hall of Castle Krakenburg was considerably livelier. Servants bustled this way and that, bearing casks and crates labelled in an intriguing variety of languages. Once again, Kamui’s arrival prompted a good deal of whispering, and more than a few open glares. In here, though, Shigure appeared to be under almost the same level of scrutiny; he shrank away from it, to hide behind Hinoka’s hakama with a panicked whimper.

For Kamui’s part, she scanned this throng: a man she recognised as being one of Leo’s retainers stood in the eye of the storm, directing it all, but there was still no sign of the man himself.

“This the lamp oil for the guest rooms? Up those stairs there. And if you spill any on the carpet, I’ll make you get down on your knees and lick it off.” He turned to Kamui as she approached, with a devilish grin. “How can I service you ladies? - ah, Lady Kamui.”

Hinoka bristled at that, but Kamui pointedly ignored it. This one must be Niles, she supposed: if Leo was to be believed, his more uncouth remarks usually weren’t serious, and sometimes weren't even intentional.

“Hello, Niles,” she said, instead. “I was just wondering if, er…”

“If I’d seen Lord Leo? No, and neither has anyone else; apart from Odin. They’ve been chained to his desk all day, working on…” He stopped himself, with a slow grin. “Well, I _could_ tell you what he's got planned for tomorrow, but I’d get such a spanking if he found out I’d ruined the surprise for you.”

Kamui sighed. “Fair enough. So is there anything we could do to help out while we’re waiting for the others to catch up?”

Niles considered this for a moment. “I mean, since you’re offering, I guess you could -”

“Kamui.”

Kamui looked up, to see Camilla staring down from the gallery above them. She felt her face split into a smile: this was, perhaps, the moment she had anticipated the most eagerly, ever since the date for the ceremony had been set. She had played and replayed the scene in her head, every time she’d found herself missing her sister: she’d imagined Camilla running to her, smothering her in a comforting embrace with a ripple of laughter, breaking away only to dry Kamui’s tears of joy.

But Camilla turned away, her face downcast, and proceeded along the gallery slowly. She briefly disappeared behind a wall, only to reemerge at the top of the stairs, the white samite of her gown trailing delicately over the steps behind her as she descended. She was clad entirely in the white of full mourning, just as she had been at Ryouma’s coronation, half a year ago: her shoulders were shrouded in a shawl of white wool, her long hair bound up in a net of pearls. As she drew nearer, Kamui saw that her face seemed to be rather more heavily made-up than it was normally; and yet, behind the layers of kohl and powder, there was a hint of redness about her eye.

“Camilla.” Kamui very nearly broke down there and then. Knowing she had so thoroughly earned the scorn of people she had never met was harrowing enough; but there was nothing in the world that she could have done - no apologies, nor atonements, nor resolutions to philanthropy - that could ever have assuaged her guilt in that moment.

Was this why Leo had never mentioned Camilla in his letters? Was it to spare Kamui the knowledge of what she’d done to their sister - or was it to ensure that the sight would leave more of an impact, for having witnessed it first in person? Had either of them actually forgiven her at all? A small part of her hoped not: that would be more, far more, than she deserved, and the memories of her sins stung all the more for the knowledge that every one had gone unpunished.

But she hushed the snarl of anxiety in her stomach, and held fast to her smile. They were still in the castle’s entrance hall, surrounded by people who were already half-expecting and half-hoping that she would make a scene; and the dragonstone still beat against her heart. “It’s so good to finally see you again.”

She swallowed, and held out her arms. Camilla eyed her hesitantly, her gaze briefly flickering to Hinoka. For a moment, Kamui feared that she might have overstepped the mark - that Camilla’s claims to forgiveness really had been a diplomatic gesture, and that she did (quite rightly) resent her, as almost everyone else in Nohr seemed to. But, after a moment’s deliberation, Camilla moved to accept the hug; although she kept her arms draped loosely about Kamui’s shoulders, a far cry from the tight fortress they usually formed around her. She smelled a little different, too: the scent of her perfume was still there, but now it was upstaged by the smell of the extra powder, and, more worryingly, the faint tang of wine.

“It’s good to see you too, darling. More than you’ll ever know,” said Camilla, when they finally broke apart. She was smiling now, but it was a shaky smile. “And you, Princess Hinoka,” she added, dipping into a bow after the Hoshidan style.

Hinoka looked a little surprised by that; Kamui wasn’t sure what sort of reception her sister had expected to be met with, but clearly this wasn’t it. Her face flushed a little as she bowed back. “L-likewise, Prin… er… actually, what _is_ the correct way to address you now?”

Camilla actually laughed at that; it was the soft laugh that she broke into whenever she saw something she found endearing, but it occurred to Kamui that she was probably the only person here who could identify it as such, and not as amusement. Poor Hinoka’s gaze fell sheepishly to the floor, her face continuing to colour steadily.

“Well, my title is still Princess, if that’s what you meant,” Camilla assured her. “Although if you’d find it easier to just call me by my name, I have no objection to that.”

“Um, I think I can manage Princess Camilla.” Hinoka paused for a moment, and then winced as she realised the implied slight in what she’d said. “Er, un-unless you’d _prefer_ Camilla. - I just, I don’t want to overstep any boundaries, or…”

“Call me what you will. After all, we’re like to see a good deal of each other from now on, considering we share a nephew.” The nephew in question had stayed hidden behind Hinoka for most of this conversation; he peered out cautiously, as Camilla bent down to his eye level. “And this must be the little man himself.”

“Say it like we practiced,” Kamui whispered encouragingly, in Hoshidan. Shigure looked up at her, wide-eyed, and turned back to Camilla.

“Hullo, Aunt Camilla,” he enunciated carefully, in heavily-accented Nohrian. “My name is Shigure. It is nice to meet you. Thank you for having me.”

He ended his recitation with a precise little bow, in the Nohrian fashion with his hands behind his back; this, too, had been carefully rehearsed. Camilla clapped her hands, her smile a good deal less sad now.

“Oh, aren’t you just _precious!_ ” she cried, as she impulsively reached out to pull him into a hug.

This proved to be a bad move. Shigure gave a frightened little squeak at the sudden contact, wriggled from her grasp, and ducked back behind Hinoka.

The expression that flickered over Camilla’s face just then numbered among the most heartbreaking sights Kamui had ever seen.

“Ah, sorry!” Kamui said hastily. “He’s just not used to being touched by people he hasn’t met before. It’s my fault; I should have mentioned that earlier.”

Camilla smiled, but it was a tight little line of a smile; the kind of smile she had always used to demonstrate to her younger siblings that everything was all right, during times when it wasn’t.

“Not to worry, dear. I should have kept the cultural difference in mind myself,” she said, but it came out in a low quaver; she added, in Hoshidan, “I’m very sorry for frightening you, Shigure.”

Kamui exchanged a helpless glance with Hinoka. What was one supposed to do in this situation? She understood, now, why Leo had been so eager to have Shigure stay with them here, but she was less certain as to the wisdom of the idea. The Camilla she remembered, with her black velvet gowns and unfettered displays of affection, would definitely have wanted another child in her life, a receptacle for all the love she no longer had any other outlet for; but for this fragile, haunted shade of her, it was too soon after the last one, too much like trying to replace Elise. If Shigure said or did anything that reminded her of their sister, it would only renew Camilla’s grief that Elise herself was no longer here; if he acted in a way that was too different from her, it would only serve as a grim reminder that she was never coming back, and that nothing could fill the empty space that she had left.

Kamui was rescued before the situation could deteriorate any further, as the doors opened and Ryouma entered, with Orochi on his arm, and Kaze by his side. They were closely followed by Jakob, Mozu, and Tsubaki, each bearing a trunk. By the doorway, a pile of luggage had appeared that seemed to be growing steadily bigger every time Kamui took her eyes off it; presumably Saizou and Kagerou had arrived as well. The last to enter were Takumi, Oboro, and Sakura. Oboro kept her face downcast, shadowed by her travel-hood, in a way that looked demure, but was probably just an effort to avoid making “the Grimace”, as she called it. As Takumi’s betrothed, her left arm was laced into his; Sakura kept a careful grip on her right (a calming technique that would be as much for her own benefit as for her friend’s, Kamui supposed ruefully).

“You took your time,” Hinoka commented.

“I know,” Ryouma nodded apologetically. “We thought to take the scenic route, along the city walls.”

That was probably sensible, Kamui mused with a nod to herself. If the observations she’d made during the war were anything to go by, seeing Nohrian buildings from a distance was a bit less distressing for Oboro than seeing Nohrian people at close quarters.

Shigure slipped out from behind Hinoka and scurried over to his father, arms outstretched in a silent plea to be lifted. He buried his face in Kaze’s shirt with a soft whimper, clinging to fistfuls of the fabric. Kamui winced a little as she saw Camilla’s composure falter again; but this time the distress only showed for a split second, before her face settled into the queenly mask it had been at Ryouma’s coronation.

“Please excuse the delay, Princess Camilla; as well as the imposition on your hospitality,” Ryouma continued, offering her a stiff bow, which she answered with a fluid courtesy.

“It’s no imposition at all, Your Grace,” Camilla returned, in Hoshidan. “My brother sends his regrets that he couldn’t be here to greet you himself. Apparently, he has some last-minute business to take care of for tomorrow’s festivities, but he hasn’t told anyone outside his retinue what it is.”

“Well, colour me intrigued,” put in Orochi. “Speaking of, I heard through the grapevine that the chancellor of your Mage Academy would be at tomorrow’s shindig?”

Orochi’s grin was infectious; Camilla’s own smile grew a little more genuine. “Well, I’m not sure how much of a ‘shindig’ it’s going to be, but he’ll certainly be attending. For some reason, Leo appears to have invited most of the academy’s faculty.”

“ _Excellent_.” Orochi sounded so wickedly gleeful that she probably would have steepled her fingers, if she hadn't been holding onto Ryouma’s arm. “I need to pick his brain about something.”

“Dare we ask?” probed Kamui dubiously.

“Honestly, probably not,” Orochi admitted.

Camilla tittered into the back of her hand, which eased Kamui’s mind a little. These were two formidable women, she mused: a queen who could exorcise the tension from any situation with a few light words, and a princess who was capable of bearing unimaginable grief with resilience enough to laugh at them.

Camilla continued talking to Ryouma and Orochi, but through this reverie, Kamui was only listening to the conversation with half an ear. She was startled back to reality by a whisper from Oboro, though.

“Lady Kamui. Lady Hinoka.” The mildness of her tone was thoroughly dissonant with her expression: the Grimace was out in full force, but it was trained not on any of the Nohrians in the room, but on the two of them. “I’m not mad, but. Would you mind, possibly, explaining all… _this_ to me?”

Kamui followed her line of sight sheepishly downwards, and winced. She and Hinoka were both wearing hakama in a very dark blue, and so far nobody else had noticed the stains; but Oboro’s eye for fabric was almost omniscient.

“Oh, the blood. I’m sorry,” she cringed.

“Do we want to know what happened?” asked Takumi.

“Oh, not to worry,” said Hinoka airily. “It’s not our blood.”

Takumi gave her a flat stare. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that probably sounded more reassuring in your head.”

Kamui sighed. “It’s a long story. We’ll tell you later.”

“Well, whoever’s blood it is, we need to get it washed out before it stains,” said Oboro firmly. Kamui’s heart stung a little, as it occurred to her that this reaction was likely a coping mechanism of some sort: that Oboro was deliberately focussing all her attentions on a subject she enjoyed, and on a problem she was capable of solving. It was an approach Kamui took to heart; this was a situation she had some control over as well, after all.

During this conversation, Camilla had taken Ryouma, Orochi and Kaze to the window, and appeared to be pointing something out to them in the gardens below. Niles, too, had moved away from their group; out of the corner of her eye, Kamui spotted him talking to a luggage-laden Jakob, pointing out the same flight of stairs Camilla had come down. They weren’t near enough to hear what was being said, but presumably Jakob had found it offensive; he recoiled from Niles, and turned primly on his heel to march in the direction of the stairs. Kamui caught his elbow as he passed; the sudden halt almost jerked him to the floor.

“Something the matter, Lady Kamui?” His voice went up an entire octave, at the start of his sentence, as he tried to speak and right his footing at the same time.

“These to go up to my room?” she asked. He shook his head.

“No, these are Master Shigure’s things. I’ll have yours brought up as soon as Mozu finishes bringing them in. That boorish excuse for a retainer tells me you and your sisters will be sharing the same room you had the first time you stayed here.” Judging by his tone, Niles hadn’t worded it quite like that; Kamui figured it was better not to enquire as to the exact phrasing.

She thanked him, and made for the stairs, gesturing to Hinoka and Sakura to follow. Oboro, too, released her grip on Takumi’s arm (albeit very reluctantly) and walked with them.

“I may as well just get you into your jūnihitoe now,” she said, by way of explanation. “Seeing as how you’re changing clothes anyway.”

Kamui raised an eyebrow. “Won’t that mess them up?”

“N-no, it’s p-pretty normal to put them on the night before,” piped up Sakura, speaking for the first time. “Since they take such a long t-time to get on and off.”

“Wait, so did you _not_ make Kamui sleep in hers the night before Ryouma’s coronation?” asked Hinoka; she sounded more than a little betrayed.

“Well, with all due respect, Lady Hinoka,” said Oboro wryly, “I don’t know if you remember how long it took to keep you still long enough to put all the layers on you…”

Hinoka chuckled. “Can’t argue with that. Guess we’re all doing our time together tonight, then.”

“Hey, in what universe does wearing an Oboro original count as ‘doing time’?” Oboro riposted primly.

The staircase was proving a difficult junction to navigate; the steps themselves were a good two metres wide, but the four of them still found themselves having to walk single-file to avoid the steady stream of servants ferrying travel cases and armfuls of linen in both directions. Kamui kept her eyes front and centre, pointedly ignoring the hissed conversations that followed them, but she could still feel their stares boring into the back of her head. As they reached the landing and rounded the corner into the gallery, they passed a couple of men in butlers’ uniforms who openly glowered at them; but, as their eyes fell on a point beyond Kamui’s shoulder, their expressions quickly shattered into terror, and they hurried past her with their heads bowed.

Kamui turned around; Oboro had unleashed the Grimace again.

“Amateurs,” she quipped, as it softened into a grin. Kamui did her best to laugh along, but the sight of it only served to tighten, rather than ease, the knot in her stomach. As someone who had been raised on Nohrian values, and groomed for command in the Nohrian military, the story behind the Grimace had always left her with an uncomfortable feeling of secondhand guilt; after today’s events, though, she wasn’t so sure it could be considered secondhand anymore. The same psychological damage those brigands had done to Oboro, Kamui had wrought upon an entire city. The hostility her arrival had been met with was neither unexpected, nor undeserved.

Even so, there had to be something she could do to ease the suffering she had inflicted. She couldn’t bring back the dead, but she could feed and shelter the living. It was a comforting thought, and she held fast to it, as they continued along the gallery.

 

* * *

 

The room had stood empty for five years. She couldn’t sleep in it tonight either.

It was in the east wing with the other guest rooms, rather than being in the royal family’s quarters; with hindsight, that in itself should have made it obvious that King Garon hadn’t truly considered her his child. The room itself had been kept untouched since the first and last time she’d used it, though: the bookcases lining the walls were still stacked with her favourite novels, the wardrobe still filled with her old clothes. Once upon a time, she had sighed wistfully over Camilla and Elise’s dresses, and even Leo’s waistcoats, and how much finer they were than the starched pinafores of wool and wincey she had been supplied with; but they were comfortable, at least, and looked plain and practical enough that the sets of hakama she now favoured didn’t seem too much out of place folded below them.

Beside her, Sakura stirred a little, curling closer to Hinoka. It had taken them a while to drop off, too: Sakura had felt uneasy about sleeping in a strange bed (particularly in light of its _being_ a bed, and not a futon), and Hinoka had felt uneasy about Sakura’s unease. But, after a few hours of talking softly about nothing in particular, the pair of them had drifted off at some point around midnight, leaving Kamui alone with her thoughts: thoughts of that fight in the alley, and how naturally killing had come to her, even after all this time; thoughts of a sea of faceless orphans, made helpless and destitute by her hand; thoughts of Camilla, left to spend her days veiled in white, while Kamui ate mochi in the sun.

Thoughts of Leo, locked away in his dark tower, with so many responsibilities piled upon him that he couldn’t even set them down long enough for her to see how he fared.

It didn’t help that, in all honesty, Kamui was quite hungry. An evening meal had been brought up to them (apparently the great hall was being set up for tomorrow’s festivities), but she hadn’t felt much like eating at the time: the food had been delivered by a couple of maids, rather than any of the princesses’ own retainers, and the service had come with a glare that could have curdled milk. A small part of her wondered if Mozu might still be up; a glance at the clock on the wall, primly declaring that it was half past one in the morning, told her no.

Her eyes fell from the clock, to land on another, much smaller stack of books, resting on top of her trunk. She hadn’t finished unpacking yet, but these had been in the satchel she’d carried on the flight over; she had intended to pass them on to Leo as soon as she arrived, but that plan had been based on the assumption that she would see him straightaway. Or at all.

It occurred to Kamui that he might actually still be awake at this hour, even if the rest of the household wasn’t. On most nights, he held rigidly to an eleven o’clock bedtime, but whenever he was absorbed in one of his projects, he would only go to bed if someone else reminded him to. If it turned out he was asleep, she could leave the books outside his door with a note; if he wasn’t…

Would he _want_ to see her, if he wasn’t? She had spent the day assuming his work really had kept him too busy to leave his study, but it occurred to her that perhaps that had only been a tactful excuse to avoid her. He had never mentioned Camilla in any of his letters; yet again, Kamui wondered if he resented her for the damage she’d done to his family - _his_ , not theirs. Not Kamui’s.

But then, surely, his keeping Camilla’s grief from her was all the more reason to check on him. If he wouldn’t speak of his sister’s plight, how far had he understated his own? No, for her own peace of mind, she had to see him: a resentful Leo would be a more welcome sight than an ailing Leo, without question.

Gingerly, Kamui slipped off the bed, casting a last look back at her sisters. It was easy enough to get up without disturbing them; given how stuffy sleeping in the twelve layers of jūnihitoe could be, they had been lying on top of the covers rather than under them. She tucked the books under her arm, and padded softly to the door.

Kamui didn't have the clearest memory of the castle’s layout, but she knew the royal family’s quarters were in the same part of the castle as the throne room. _That_ , on the other hand, was a part of the castle she was very familiar with: it had served as the backdrop to her nightmares for more than a year. She picked her way there in grim silence, an image of Leo’s face firmly fixed in her mind, to cover the other images threatening to flash before her eyes as she remembered the last time she’d been here. When she reached the top of the grand staircase, it was with a deep breath and gritted teeth that she pushed the door open.

The room it opened onto was more than a little different to the one she remembered. Lanterns still hung from the brackets mounted on the walls, but the candelabras lining the carpet that led to the throne were gone. The candles remained, though; they floated in midair, a few feet above Kamui’s head. All were lit with flickering blue flames, offering just enough light to see the other changes Leo had made to the room.

The various instruments of torture Garon had left strewn about, the cages suspended from the ceiling, had all been removed, but not replaced. The relief at being spared the macabre sight of them aside, their absence also served to make the room feel less cluttered; there were fewer things on the ground to draw attention away from the throne itself. To Kamui’s amusement, that, too, had been changed a little: someone had left a striped cushion on the seat.

The most striking change, though, was the plants. Everywhere, plants. These had to have been Leo’s own handiwork: rather than being confined to pots, they were rooted in beds of soil dug into the floor itself, sprouting organically up through the flagstones. The spots where the candelabras had once stood were now occupied by ordered rows of slender birch trees; their silver bark glowed eerily in the candles’ light. The walls were an artful tangle of briars spiralling up to the ceiling, bearing crests of black and blue roses, each flower just a little too perfect to seem completely natural. Twists of ivy bordered each doorway. The throne itself was guarded on either side by what looked to be spears of ripe tomatoes.

“Leo, you are _incorrigible_ ,” Kamui snickered to herself, as her eyes fell on the latter. Still, the change was enormously cheering to see: if he could revive and beautify the country half as well as he had this room, it would prove to be in the best hands.

In any case, her eagerness to see the man himself again was renewed. There was only one door at the far end of the room; carefully, she turned the knob, wincing as the hinges creaked, and gingerly nudged it shut behind her.

And quietly made her way up the spiral staircase, with her layers of skirts hiked up to her knees to keep from tripping over them.

And soundlessly reached the landing, and rounded the corner into the royal family’s private quarters.

And very noisily collided with Leo.

They both fell to the floor with a collective yelp, and a clash of metal against stone. Leo landed on his behind in front of her, his legs splayed out at odd angles, like a spider in a bath. Under other circumstances, Kamui might have laughed at that; but as it was, she had barely sat up herself before he had a spell glowing and ready in his hand, illuminating the steely glare he trained on her.

It was precisely the expression she’d feared she’d be met with: the same one he’d worn in the Woods of the Forlorn. Kamui opened her mouth, already beginning to form the apology, when a flicker of recognition passed over his face, and it softened into something almost akin to a smile.

“Oh, it’s _you_ ,” he sighed, sounding faintly relieved. The unborn spell dissipated, leaving only moonlight to see him by. “Sorry, I heard the door creak, and I assumed…”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” said Kamui quickly. “With hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have come looking for you at this time of night. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, let’s just agree that we’re both sorry, and make our exeunt before we wake Camilla,” Leo whispered urgently; then, “Wait, you were looking for _me_? At this hour?”

Kamui kept her face sheepishly downcast as she gathered up the books she’d dropped and thrust them at him. “Um. You were still working before, so. I’m sorry, I just figured you’d maybe still be awake…”

Neither of them moved for a moment. When Leo spoke again, it was so quietly that Kamui wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t imagined it.

“So you couldn’t sleep either.” When she lifted her gaze from the floor, the expression she saw on his face was an inscrutable one: one part pity to one part weariness, to two parts something she couldn't quite identify. It was only now that she noticed how much thinner and paler he had become, how the dark circles under his eyes had deepened, since she’d seen him last.

“I was worried about you,” Kamui admitted. “And… a lot of other things. Mostly you, though.”

Leo said nothing.

“I mean - you never said a word to me about the state Camilla’s in,” she continued, although _overflowed_ might be a better way of phrasing it; she found the words pouring out of her before her mind had even had time to fully form them. “And I just. I couldn’t stop thinking… since you never write about yourself either… Leo, I…”

She broke off there: if she tried to speak past the lump in her throat, she would end up in tears. Once upon a time, when they were still children together in the Northern Fortress, she’d have thought nothing of crying in front of Leo; but as a princess of Hoshido before the king of Nohr, Kamui was a little uncertain as to where the boundary lines now lay between them.

Leo closed his eyes with the faintest trace of a sigh, and staggered to his feet. It took Kamui a moment to register the hand he extended to her.

“In any case, your timing’s impeccable,” he said. He was smiling now, but it was an exhausted smile that only made Kamui’s heart ache with pity. “I find myself in a rut with my current project; perhaps a fresh perspective will be enough to pull me out of it.”

The offer of his hand still stood. After a moment’s deliberation, Kamui accepted it, her palm pressed at right-angles over his, and he pulled her up to stand before him. The action really shouldn’t have prompted a grunt as laboured as the one he let out, she mused indignantly, before realising with a pang that if he was thinner in the face than he had been, it stood to reason that he’d be thinner everywhere else as well.

As it turned out, the door leading to Leo’s quarters would have been easily identifiable, even if she hadn't run into him; a blue light emanated faintly from the doorway, the same soft glow as the one that illuminated the throne room.

“No prizes for guessing which room’s yours,” Kamui observed, with a grin.

“The one with the door left ajar, yes,” said Leo flatly.

“Hey, I _deduced_ something. Let me have this.”

Leo didn’t reply, but he exhaled heavily through his nose, in a way that might have been a faint expression of amusement. It was only as he reached the doorway, and was about to usher her in, that it appeared to occur to him that their hands were still clasped: he dropped hers hastily with a muttered apology, fingers splayed wide as if he’d just laid his entire hand flat over a hot kettle. Kamui wasn’t sure why he felt that he should apologise for that, but seeing how uncomfortable he looked, she didn’t pass comment.

It was equally difficult to wrap her head around the idea that Leo’s study belonged to the same person who had decorated the throne room so beautifully. She had remembered him as being quite a tidy person, but this room was littered with so many papers and devices, it was difficult to make out the surfaces they covered.

“It’s like someone let a wyvern loose in a school-room,” she mused aloud, before she could stop herself. Leo sighed.

“I suppose it is, at that,” he admitted. “It’s unsightly and a nuisance; but every time I manage to straighten the place out, some lord ambles along with another stack of proposed bills no sane person would sign off on, and I end up buried again. If I didn’t know better, I’d be inclined to wonder if they pick their moments deliberately, out of spite.”

He went to the fireplace - the source of the blue light - and hefted a stack of books off the seat of the armchair there. This he offered to Kamui with a sideways nod, before turning to fetch a second chair from beside a mountain of paperwork that might have had a desk under it. As Kamui settled gingerly into it, her eyes fell on the tray of tea-things serving as an erstwhile paperweight on top of an ottoman in the corner of the room; more specifically, on the untouched loaf of bread that had been left with them.

“What’s the bread for?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s an experiment I’m working on,” said Leo, with a completely straight face. “I’m studying the effects of Brynhildr’s plant-manipulation spells on mould spores.”

Kamui tilted her head quizzically to the side. “Really?”

“No, not really,” he scoffed. “Mould’s about the only thing in this country that _can_ grow happily on its own. No, it was supposed to be supper. Niles has this bizarre house rule that I’m not allowed to pull all-nighters unless I promise to eat.”

“He has the right idea,” Kamui chided, but her lecture was cut short by the sound of her stomach weighing in on the discussion.

Leo’s face broke into the amused smirk that had once been his hallmark; Kamui found, with another ache, that she had missed the sight of it more than she’d thought. “You need it more than I do, by the sound of it.”

She shrugged. “Well, if you’re offering…”

He laughed openly at that, and set about slicing the bread. As he was doing that, Kamui took a proper look around the room. It, like hers, was lined with bookcases; but where her books had been shelved in neat rows, Leo had crammed as many onto his as he could fit, laying them in haphazard stacks on top of each other - this, despite the large, empty spaces on a few of the shelves, which presumably housed the books lying open on his desk. A smaller shelf, on the wall over the desk, was populated with trays of neatly-labelled seedlings. She didn’t recognise all of them, especially not from a distance, but one of them appeared to be the makings of a rice stalk.

“Ah, you mentioned bioengineering in some of your letters. Is that the project you’ve been working on?”

Leo tilted his head to one side, considering the question; perhaps it was the angle at which the firelight shone on him, but it seemed that a shadow had passed over his face. He had finished cutting her a slice of bread; with a flourish of the hand and a muttered incantation, he released it to hover in midair over the fire.

“It’s _a_ project I’m working on, anyway. My main project has had to be put on hold until after tomorrow.” He strode to the desk, and reached over it to lift one of the seed-trays down, handling the tiny plants with the kind of reverent tenderness most people reserved for newborn infants. “I’ve been studying the physical composition of various edible plants, to see if there isn’t a way to develop new versions hardy enough to survive in Nohrian fields.”

“You’ve really worked out a way to do that?”

“It’s too early to tell yet. When these specimens grow large enough, I’ll plant them in the garden under various conditions, and see what happens.” He set the tray down on the floor in front of her, dropping to one knee to examine them. Kamui leaned forward to get a better look herself; even the ones she didn’t recognise were now identifiable by their labels, but she wasn’t familiar with all their names.

“What’s _Oryza Umbra_?” she asked, pointing it out; it was the one that, from a distance, had looked like rice, but now she could see that its tapering leaves were a dark purplish colour.

“My pride and joy.” Leo gently lifted the seedling’s watery bed from the tray, and held it up to her. She noted, with equal parts amusement and fondness, that his eyes were alight with the same spark they’d always had when the two of them read together as children. “It’s my first attempt at engineering a Nohrian species of rice. It may not taste the same, but if I did this right, it should eventually be possible to cultivate it en masse.”

He continued, explaining how Nohrian plants had evolved dark leaves to better absorb what little sunlight they could, and the means by which he’d replicated that effect in these seedlings by using Brynhildr to alter their internal structure. As he spoke, a nagging voice at the back of Kamui’s mind wondered about the “main project” he’d mentioned, the one he had turned so subdued when he spoke of, but she supposed that this curiosity would have to go unsatisfied: she’d waited half a year to see Leo’s smile again, and she wasn’t about to risk banishing it with a single ill-advised question.

“You’ve really put a lot of thought into this,” she commented instead. Leo shrugged.

“I’m the first ruling monarch to wield Brynhildr since the queen who gave the tome its name,” he said simply. “It’s a resource that’s remained untapped since the 6th century. Not taking the time to properly research its uses would be a waste.”

“Well, yes, but coming up with all this stuff on top of all your other duties is just…” Kamui gestured wildly, trying to untangle the words in her head enough to get her point across. “Leo, you’re _amazing_.”

Leo’s eyes widened at that; it was difficult to tell in the cold firelight, but Kamui could have sworn his ears had reddened as well. He began fiddling with the seed-tray again, his gaze fixed intently on it.

“Hardly,” he mumbled; then, with a faint wrinkling of his nose, “wait, do you smell - ?”

It took Kamui a moment to pick up on it, but there was a faint whiff of smoke in the air. They both turned to the fire; the bread he had levitated over it for toasting had been left forgotten, and was now a shrivelled lump of charcoal.

“Speaking of wasted resources,” he said sheepishly. Kamui said nothing; she couldn't have spoken for laughing. He rose to cut her another slice, but she lifted a hand to halt him.

“Make it two this time.”

He raised a concerned eyebrow. “Are you that hungry? Forgive me, I shouldn’t be keeping you up this late -”

Kamui shook her head. “It’s not for me.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as my retainers,” he sighed, but proceeded to cut and levitate both slices nonetheless.

“Hey, sciencing is hungry work,” she pointed out. “You need that glucose in your brain, right?”

“‘Sciencing’ isn’t a word, but I suppose you’re not wrong,” he conceded, sitting down in the chair he’d left out for himself this time. “Anyway, I’ve lectured you enough about it. Is there anything you’d prefer to talk about?”

Kamui debated with herself over this for a moment. This conversation had been so soothing, after today’s events, and she’d be sorry to dampen it; but raising those events with Leo was her chance to effect real, positive change, or at least to be reassured that such a change was coming. She took a deep breath.

“Actually, yes,” she said, finally.

Leo listened attentively but thoughtfully as she related the day’s events to him; occasionally he would take down a note on a piece of scrap paper. This time he remembered to take the toast off the fire, and was buttering it when she concluded the story.

“So is there anything at all that I could do for them?” she asked, as he passed her a slice.

“You’re raising twenty questions as one here,” Leo sighed, massaging his brow. “To begin with, the bandit problem is still a work in progress. I did consider aerial patrols, like you said, but that’s probably not happening until we raise the funds to have an actual flight of pegasi shipped over. Wyverns are a lot harder to discipline, and falcons are too rare a commodity to serve as mounts for the guard; at present, we only have two or three of them in the stables here.”

Kamui nodded; this was what she’d expected to hear. “And the child labour?”

Leo closed his eyes, his expression one of genuine regret. “I’m afraid that’s been an unfortunate reality of Nohrian society for most of our history; and never more so than in the years following major conflicts.” He gestured to his seedlings on the floor again. “Although hopefully fewer children will be that desperate, once I work out how to grow these on a wider scale. My aim is to reach a point where I can distribute a regular supply of food rations to anyone living below the poverty line.”

“Good,” Kamui said emphatically, and meant it. The lingering doubt undercutting her relief must have come out in her tone, though.

“I know, it’s more of a longterm solution,” he sighed. “I’ll be able to do more once our economy’s picked up again. Father plunged most of our budget into the war, so I’m a little hamstrung at the moment.”

“It’s, it’s okay,” she assured him quickly. “I’m just glad you’re doing something about it at all. But if there’s any sort of contribution I could make in the meantime…”

“Well, we’ll have plenty of time to workshop a more immediate solution,” he pointed out.

Kamui grinned. “Are you sure you’ll be able to put up with me for that length of time?”

“Oh, I’ll live.” He made a face that was trying for an exaggerated expression of martyrdom, but the effect was rather spoiled by the mouthful of toast stuffed in his cheek. Kamui chuckled again at that.

Leo paused for a moment, once he’d swallowed. His smirk had faded into a softer smile; but behind it, there was a hint of calculation, of the sort that usually meant he had something he wanted to say, but was still debating internally over whether or not to say it.

“You know, joking aside…” he said finally, “It really is good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Kamui returned. “And… a relief that you’re still talking to me.”

“Ha. You’ll not be rid of me that easily.” Leo’s tone was drily sarcastic, but his face remained sincere.

They both opened their mouths to speak again, but neither of them got the words out before the door opened; Leo started at the sudden noise, and leapt to his feet.

“Milord, it’s time. Should I start… oh.” Niles stood in the doorway, cheeks puffed out in a suppressed yawn. He woke up instantly when he spotted Kamui sitting before Leo, though.

“I can come back later,” he offered. Leo shook his head.

“No, we’re working to a tight schedule here. You go ahead and draw the bath; I’ll be back once I’ve seen Kamui to her room.”

“Wait, don’t tell me it’s morning already.” A little pulse of panic beat through Kamui at the thought of Hinoka and Sakura waking up to find she’d disappeared.

“No, it’s only four o’clock,” Leo assured her, pointing out a rather odd clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s just a Nohrian coronation tradition. I have to bathe, and then spend seven hours praying to the Dusk Dragon, before the ceremony. Apparently it’s supposed to cleanse me of my earthly impurities, and make me a more fitting vessel for the dragon’s will. Or some other such Odinism.”

Niles snickered at that; presumably _Odinism_ was a bit of jargon that meant more to them than it would to Kamui.

“I’ll not keep you, then,” Kamui rose, and made to depart on her own. “I can find my own way back. Talk to you again later, though?”

Leo nodded, but his expression had reverted to its usual seriousness. “Of course. There’s something I’ll need your opinion on after the ceremony anyway.”

“You know, Lady Kamui, it’s only the prayer that he needs to be alone for,” Niles mused. “You _could_ hang out here a little longer, as long as you’re okay with seeing him -”

“ _Niles_ ,” Leo interjected sternly.

“- sitting around, waiting impatiently for his bath to be filled,” Niles concluded innocently.

Kamui shook her head, with a conciliatory smile. “Thanks, but Leo’s right. I should head back before I’m missed.”

Her smile turned more roguish as she dropped Leo a mock-courtesy. “Thank you for granting me this audience, Your Grace.”

Leo made that silent exhale of a laugh again. “Yes, well. I’ll not detain you any further, Princess Kamui.”

Kamui left in high spirits.

The walk back to her room was more of a stagger, in truth; sleep seemed to be coming more naturally to her now. Whether it was a full stomach, or the reassurance that some of the damage she’d wrought could be undone eventually, or simply the knowledge that Leo was still happy to talk to her, Kamui couldn’t have said, but she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. Even the pouch hanging from her neck felt lighter somehow. The tired grin on her face would probably look ridiculous, if anyone saw it, but she found it was impossible to repress. Fortunately, no-one did see; the rest of the castle was still silent, and when at last she reached her room, her sisters did not stir even when she fell into bed beside them.

She was asleep the moment she hit the pillow, and her dreams were a swirl of glimmering leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&  
> I am SO sorry for the length of this one. In my defence, I did warn you in the last chapter that this one was going to be a behemoth, but even so. Still, I did manage to get it out in time for today, and the 15th landed on a weekend this time, so!
> 
> \- The Watsonian explanation for the varying number of casualties in Kamui’s invasion is that some accounts downplay or exaggerate the number in accordance with the writers’ personal biases. The Doylist explanation was that only a few of the maps were rout maps, so the actual body count would depend on how cruel the player is. I had 120 be the average reported figure, since that was the closest round figure to the number of unavoidable opponents in this segment of the game (excluding Garon, Camilla, and Xander) (117, if you were curious); but then there’s no indicating that they all actually died, so even that’s not completely accurate. Gosh history is difficult sometimes, haha.
> 
> \- Shigure in this fic is a difficult balance to strike. He’s the purest little cinnamon roll, but he’s still a little boy; it’s a bit tricky figuring out how to write him in such a way that he’s not OOC, without making him into some kind of twee, overly-angelic, Disnified version of a child. I hope I did okay.
> 
> \- The academies do both accept child students, but they’re better known for their university divisions; for royalty, standard practice is to receive their primary and secondary education from tutors, but sometimes they then go on to pursue a course of higher education at one of the academies. Obviously, Leo would have been very keen to study at the Mage Academy, but I imagine he’d have had to postpone his enrolment until the war ended, and then after that it just isn’t an option for him anymore.
> 
> \- Kamui, as I headcanon her, is in quite a difficult position socially: while she is a very empathetic person, and can almost physically feel when someone else is hurting, spending her childhood in captivity has left her lacking the proper social skills to know what to do to help; so a lot of the time she ends up either putting her foot in her mouth or panicking because she doesn’t know what to say (stoicism aside, this is the other reason why Leo omitted so much of his and Camilla’s situation from his letters to her).
> 
> \- A common misconception online is that the central keep at Castle Krakenburg is called “Clarkenstein”, owing largely to a misunderstanding in an early fan-translation. In actuality, the line in question was simply referring to the castle itself, which is called “Krakenstein” throughout the Japanese version of the game (don’t ask me why they changed it; I guess they figured referencing mountains was more apt, given its geographical location?). So no, the keep is just the keep; it doesn’t have a fancy name, sorry.
> 
> \- Ryouma is the only one of the Hoshidan royals who is married at this point in time. Takumi got engaged to Oboro shortly after Shigure was born, but everything’s been so busy with the war and reopening her shop and all that they’re not really in any rush to have the ceremony yet. Kamui and Sakura don't really strike me as the type to think much about marriage as something they’d want for themselves until they actually fall in love (although they both enjoy reading fictional romances), and Hinoka hasn’t even realised she’s gay yet, so.
> 
> \- Look, I’m not saying my entire image of King Leo’s aesthetic can be summed up as “goth Thranduil”, but that’s exactly what I’m saying.
> 
> \- I hate ascribing political views to other people’s characters (particularly in light of the fact that, no matter how decent a person Leo is, he’s still a king, which my inner Enjolras baulks at), but Leo’s policies are interesting to think about. In-game, he’s kind of a snob sometimes (usually when it comes to being made to do chores that he considers to be beneath him), but at the same time, all his supports with people below his station tend to involve providing them with the means for self-improvement, rather than patronising them or trying to “put them in their place”. Given his dynamic with Niles especially (particularly Leo’s conversation with him in the festival DLC), I think Leo would probably be quite fixated on making things easier for people living below the poverty line; at the very least, he’d probably want to make food and education more readily accessible. This is going to come up A LOT in future chapters, so. I hope you like long conversations about the uses for plant magic in a famine, haha.


	6. The Dark Lord's Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo gets a new hat, and is decidedly not Lin-Manuel Miranda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEO

 

 

> _“The coronation of King Leo II was held on the 26th of November, 1319. By that time, the king had already been informally serving as regent for around fifteen months, following his sister’s abdication. Various of the Nohrian aristocracy objected to the kingdom’s being ruled by the child of a mistress, however temporarily; at the time, it was believed that the infant Prince Shigure was the legitimate grandson of King Garon, and King Leo’s diaries state that he had always intended to pass the throne to his nephew once the prince came of age._
> 
> _The ceremony was a fairly frugal event, just as one might expect from a postwar budget. The guest list was considered something of an oddity by the king’s contemporaries. Most of his invitations to foreign dignitaries made some political sense: the entire Hoshidan royal family, including his beloved, Princess Kamui, were in attendance; and the governor of Cheve and the chief of the Ice Tribe had been invited, although neither made an appearance. Yet he had passed over several of the Nohrian aristocratic houses (including his own maternal relatives), and had instead invited a dozen of the country’s most respected professors of history and alchemy, as well as the entire faculty of the Mage Academy. This won him the ire of the nobles he had snubbed (Lady Mariya’s family in particular resented being denied the opportunity to improve their station, having fallen back out of favour following Mariya’s arrest and execution for treason), as well as the chancellor of the Knight Academy, the only member of his academy’s faculty in attendance, who felt the king was unfairly favouring one school over the other.”_
> 
> \- From _The Sorcerous King: Of The Reign Of Leo II_ , written by philosopher, amateur historian, and heir to the Nohrian throne, Princess Alruna, in 1812. She was a prolific writer, and King Leo was a favourite subject, a fascination sparked chiefly by her own inheritance of Brynhildr when she was fourteen; Leo was the first reigning monarch to wield the tome since its queenly namesake, and only seven others have followed him since. Tragically, Alruna herself did not prove to be one of them: her prodigious intellect was offset by a frail constitution all her life, and she finally perished of consumption shortly after this book was completed, a few weeks shy of her twentieth birthday. The first print edition was published posthumously, in accordance with the wishes of her brother, Shigure IV, in 1820; the book is still in print, and the original manuscript can be found in the archives at Castle Krakenburg.

It had been raining all morning, which people generally seemed to be regarding as an ill omen.

“Which just goes to show that, for all their stuffy research institutes, these Nohrian mages don’t know the first thing about aeromancy,” Orochi opined, as they began the trek up the grand staircase.

“Is it considered a good omen in Hoshido?” asked Kamui. Orochi shrugged.

“Rain’s always meant good things were coming, in my experience,” she said airily. “It was raining the day Lady Mikoto first came to Hoshido. It was raining the day she married Lord Sumeragi.” Her face grew a little wistful, then. “And the sun was shining bright and clear, the day she died.”

“And it was raining at the Bottomless Canyon, when Rinka first found Kamui,” put in Ryouma, rather hurriedly. They were already drawing glares from the many guards they passed on the stairs; mentioning the war would hardly improve their popularity.

“Exactly. Full marks, that man.” Orochi nodded emphatically.

Kamui was a little more dubious about Ryouma’s point: if they were counting that day, then it had also been raining when Gunter died, and when the tensions between Hoshido and Nohr had first spiralled into out-and-out war. But she swallowed that thought down; if the previous night’s conversation was any indicator, _this_ rainy day would bring only good things.

They ascended in an ordered line, according to the rules of precedence: Ryouma and Orochi first, then Hinoka, then Kamui. It bothered her more than a little that etiquette forbade her from being there to reassure Sakura; but when she sneaked a backwards glance, Takumi was walking with one arm discreetly drawn back, just enough for their sister to grip a pinch of his sleeve without anyone noticing.

Honestly, if anyone needed reassuring, it was probably Hinoka. Thanks to a combination of experience at court and typical warrior’s stoicism, she was better at hiding her feelings from the casual observer than her sheltered sister; but Kamui was close enough to see the grinding set of her jaw, the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders. Her hands were buried under twelve layers of sleeves, but the red and gold silks probably served as a convenient cover to clench her fists under.

“Are you okay?” Kamui whispered. Hinoka whipped her head around, startled at the sudden sound; behind the powdered mask Oboro had painted onto her, she looked at Kamui with eyes as wide and unblinking as a deer staring down a hunter.

“For his sake, I’ll have to be,” she muttered grimly. Shigure and Kaze were not with them; Leo had mentioned in one of his letters that he planned to have Shigure’s formal acknowledgement as crown prince held at the same time as the coronation, so they would be standing by the throne with him. Leo and Camilla weren’t to know, of course, but the notion of it was rather macabre: the boy would be made to spend the entire ceremony standing in almost the exact spot where his mother had died.

Kamui tried to find the words to respond - but what words would be more than empty noise in this situation? Perhaps fortunately, Hinoka cut her off with a quiet gasp, as they entered the throne room.

Looking back, the others were similarly impressed. Sakura’s jaw was hanging open, and even Takumi’s eyes were cast skyward, trying to see how far up the climbing briars extended. To Kamui’s greatest relief, Oboro was nodding approvingly to herself as she scanned the decor, her face perfectly content and her eyes alight with that little spark that usually meant artistic inspiration.

Orochi, though, was less enthused.

“Something the matter?” Ryouma asked her, mildly.

“Well, I’d be pretty hypocritical if I said magic should only be used for serious things,” she said, as they took their places near the throne’s plinth, under one of the trees. “But this is going totally overboard. You can _feel_ all the spells cracking through the air. I mean, it’s pretty enough, sure, until you remember they all have to draw their power from the earth. Frankly, if Nohrian mages often go around pulling stunts like this, it might explain…”

With this last sentence, she had stopped addressing Ryouma, and trailed off in a troubled murmur. Kamui thought about asking what it would explain, but the chatter echoing around the crowd fell silent, as the door leading to the royal family’s private quarters opened.

Camilla came in first, closely followed by Shigure and Kaze. She was, once again, gowned in white, although this dress was more elaborate than the one she’d worn yesterday. The ruffled tiers of her skirt were held fast by ropes of pearls, echoing the ones that formed the buttons down the bodice and the sides of her sleeves; her cuffs, beginning at her elbows, came down in a drapery of finely-worked lace to cover her hands. She stood tall and proud as ever, hands clasped over her heart like the statues of saints and queens, but the lace sleeves did not completely hide the tapping of her fingers against the back of her hand.

Kaze kept his attention fixed resolutely on Shigure the entire time. He had been allowed the familiarity of a black sokutai, rather than Nohrian formal wear; but for a man who grew discomfited when approached by individual women, and was now the centre of attention in the midst of a crowd of Nohrian aristocrats and foreign royalty, this would be a small comfort. Shigure probably would have traded with him happily, though. He had been saddled with a tight, stiff-collared doublet, of the sort Leo had worn as a boy, and didn’t look very comfortable in it: Kamui could just see the movement of his shoulders wriggling, in a reflexive but fruitless attempt to stretch the fabric out.

She turned to Hinoka, once he’d taken his place next to Camilla; concern was etched into her sister’s face, but it came in the form of suspicion, rather than renewed grief.

“She’s armed,” Hinoka pointed out, in a whisper. “Is that tradition, or are they expecting trouble?”

“Armed how?” Kamui tried to scan for Camilla’s axe without making it obvious she was staring. It didn’t work; Camilla caught her eye, and shot her a sketched little line of a smile, before turning back to Shigure.

“The dagger? You can just see the hilt sticking out from between…” Hinoka only seemed to realise what she was saying as she said it; she cut off the end of her sentence, to descend into a crimson silence.

“It probably is just a precautionary measure, anyway,” Kamui assured her, in a voice edged with a hastily-suppressed snicker. “I wouldn’t worry.”

Hinoka started to reply, but whatever she had begun to say was drowned out by a skirl of pipes. Curiously, there was no piper to be seen in the room, nor any way of telling where the music came from; it seemed to be filling the air from every possible direction, all at once. Even Shigure had stopped fidgeting, his face caught in a place between confusion and curiosity.

As one, the entire crowd turned to glance behind, as the doors opened and Leo entered.

He walked up the aisle to the throne with his eyes fixed on the middle distance. His expression was neutral, his stance poised; but it was a careful, studied composure, like a condemned man determined to face the executioner with dignity. His shoulders were shrouded by a fur-lined mantle of black velvet that swept along the ground behind him. The mantle was a new addition, but Kamui recognised his armour, a more ornately-decorated version of his old livery, as being the same stuff he had worn last night; and felt a surge of guilt at having only now realised the implications behind his feeling the need to wear it at that hour, in his own quarters. When he passed her, his gaze flicked briefly, very briefly, in her direction; he did not acknowledge her openly, but she thought she saw his lower eyelids quirk up into a tracery of a smile.

He was followed into the hall by three attendants. First came Niles, bearing two crowns of black iron on a bed of cloth-of-gold, one encircling the other. Kamui recognised the heavy, angular one on the outside as the crown that had once been King Garon’s; the other was a small circlet, like Xander’s crown in miniature, which she supposed must be for Shigure. Kaze had enlisted her help in rehearsing their part in the ceremony, with the aid of a daisy-crown; it had taken a devil of a time to persuade Shigure that he was supposed to keep the crown on his head, rather than offering it to his aunt as a present. Kamui wondered, for a moment, why Leo and his retinue weren’t coming in through the same door Shigure had, before she remembered the vigil Leo had mentioned; the Dusk Dragon’s church would be in a different part of the keep to the private quarters, if not in a different building altogether.

Niles was followed by a crop-headed man whom Kamui vaguely recognised; she supposed this would be Odin. He had been a newer addition to Leo’s retinue, making him a slightly blanker slate for Kamui than Niles was. She had never met either of them before the battle in the Woods of the Forlorn; but where Niles had been a regularly-cited source of jokes and information in Leo’s conversation since he was twelve, Odin hadn’t even been assigned to him until the autumn Leo was sixteen and Kamui was sixteen-going-on-seventeen: the same autumn she had found Lilith in the stable, three years before the war had broken out. Where Niles bore the crowns today, Odin bore a much-aged scroll, which he kept looking down at with a peculiar kind of awe, as if he couldn’t believe he really was holding it in his hands. Where everyone else looked solemn, he walked proudly, face positively alight with excitement; whether out of devotion to his liege, enjoyment of the pageantry, or some combination of the two, Kamui couldn’t have said.

The third and final retainer to enter was a sprightly man Kamui had never seen before; he carried a glass vial filled with some sort of dark liquid. Like Odin, he was smiling, but there was a rehearsed quality to it, a tightness about the lower eyelids. It reminded Kamui of nobody so much as Camilla.

Camilla herself took a step forward, as Leo and his attendants reached the foot of the steps. Brother and sister stood facing each other before the throne, while his retainers filed into place behind him, opposite Shigure and Kaze. A little puff of whispers filled the air at Camilla’s officiating the ceremony; but she turned to cast an imperious stare over the crowd, and it fell silent without her having to so much as clear her throat.

“On this day, in the city built upon the shoulders of the Dusk Dragon,” she began, her clear voice ringing through the hall, “let the people of Nohr now acknowledge their undoubted king: Leo Turin Krakenburg, the second of his name.”

Another round of muted commentary circulated, seemingly over her use of the word “undoubted”. Takumi, meanwhile, was voicing a different concern.

“Gods, is that his actual name? I thought it was short for something,” he snickered. Kamui elbowed him surreptitiously in the ribs. Oblivious to these responses (or perhaps rising above them), Camilla continued.

“Prince Leo.”

Leo inclined his head to her. “Aye.”

“Do you solemnly swear to govern the kingdom of Nohr lawfully, as a vessel for the Dusk Dragon’s will?”

“I will,” he nodded. Perhaps it was only the odd lighting of the room, but it seemed as if a shadow had passed over his face for a moment.

“And do you swear always to act for the benefit of your people and the realm, before your own?”

“I will.”

“And do you swear to adhere to the principles of chivalry, in all your decisions?”

It didn’t matter that he had hesitated; every Nohrian aristocrat in the room was laughing quietly at that one. A small, cynical voice in Kamui’s head mused that if the stories she’d heard about previous Nohrian monarchs were any indicator, then these vows were only spoken as a tradition, rather than a binding contract.

“To the best of my ability,” said Leo diplomatically. This prompted another ripple of laughter, not least from Camilla herself.

“And under what authority do you now lay claim to the throne?” she asked. Odin stepped forward; he had spent the vows standing on the balls of his feet, probably waiting for his big moment here. He opened the scroll in his hands with a theatric flourish, and began reciting its contents.

“Before you stands Leo Turin Krakenburg,” he announced, “son of Garon Alcarin Krakenburg; son of Euphemia Cerian Krakenburg; daughter of…”

He continued, reciting Leo’s genealogy back and back; Kamui quickly lost count of how many rulers the scroll listed. Once again, she found herself wondering, vaguely, about the possibility that she had inherited the lifespan of a manakete, and that she would endure for as many generations as the Krakenburg line had. Once again, she found herself hoping not: the idea that Leo himself would one day be just another name on a scroll was morbid enough; but living in such a time herself, and being the only one left to remember that he, and Shigure, and everyone else she held dear, had ever been more than that…

She swallowed, forcing these thoughts from her mind and disregarding the thrum of Azura’s pendant against her heart, as Odin concluded his oration.

“… Son of Siegfried, the chosen and anointed son of the Dusk Dragon.” He carefully rolled the scroll up again, and bowed floridly. Camilla nodded.

“Then let him be anointed, as the first of his line was anointed,” she said. Here the retainer Kamui didn’t know stepped forward, holding the vial out to them. Camilla took it from him gingerly, handling it between finger and thumb, in a way that was probably reverent, but might have been reluctant. Leo dropped to his knees before her, palms pressed together as if in prayer. Camilla reached out her free hand to smooth his fringe back from his forehead. Neither of them looked particularly enthused about whatever was coming next.

She unsealed the vial, and shook a few drops of the dark liquid onto Leo’s brow. “I ordain you now with the blood of the Dusk Dragon. May His will shape you into a guiding light to your people, here in this land where all other lights go out.”

Again, Leo looked a little uncomfortable upon hearing that; perhaps it was only disgust at having someone else’s blood running down his forehead, though. Yes, Kamui supposed that must be it. On nights when he’d stayed with her at the fortress, Leo had always been happy enough to pray to the Dusk Dragon before bed, and to attend the daily sermon with her in the morning; but he had never been especially religious - he confessed his sins to Kamui more often than to the clerics, and had written entire essays picking apart the Book of Dusk’s scriptures. In short, he did believe in the gods, but that belief certainly wasn’t as important to him as hygiene was.

“Um, is it… _really_ the Dusk Dragon’s blood?” whispered Sakura; she had gone similarly pale.

“Nah, it wouldn’t still be liquid if it was. They’ll just have slaughtered a wyvern or someth- _ow_.” Takumi’s sentence was cut off with an indignant hiss, as Kamui nudged him again.

Camilla eyed her stained fingers with a distaste that mirrored Leo’s, before she turned back to the crowd.

“So be it,” she said. “From here forward, let it be known that Garon, King of Nohr, is to be succeeded by his son and rightful heir, Prince Leo. King Leo will rule over Nohr and guide us in this new era of peace.”

This must have been Niles’s cue: he stepped forward, bearing the crowns. Camilla took up the larger of the two.

“Accept this crown,” she said, as she laid it to rest over Leo's brow. “As a symbol of your reign.”

“Thank you, sister.” Leo rose again to his feet, and turned to face the cheering congregation. It was a jarring sight: the spiked iron crown had always looked a heavy, inelegant thing to Kamui, but when thrown into contrast with Leo’s elfin face and silky hair, it was even more so.

“And thank you,” he said, addressing the room as a whole now, once the applause had died down, “for entrusting me with the task of governance today. The past five years have been an endless winter, for everyone gathered here; and there is no telling yet how long we will be made to wait for the thaw. I cannot command the sun to shine upon us; but I shall devote my life to keeping your lanterns lit. I cannot transmute base metal into gold, nor order barren soil to bear fruit unaided; but I intend to make full use of the resourcefulness that is the hallmark of our people, in finding other ways to line our coffers, and more importantly, our stomachs.

“And while the damage wrought by those who came before cannot be undone,” (here he lifted his gaze to the ceiling, probably in a diplomatic attempt to avoid catching the eye of anyone who might have had a hand in that damage) “I will recollect the pieces of what was broken, and have them forged anew; and into a shield, rather than a sword, that I might repel the advances of any others who would come before me seeking to profit from brutality.”

Behind him, Odin had begun whispering something to the man who had carried the vial of blood. His expression was difficult to pinpoint; it was like some odd cross between concern and suspicion. His companion waved him silent, as Leo continued.

“As it stands for myself, so mote it be for all my heirs hereafter.” Here Kaze brought Shigure forward. The little boy’s eyes were wide with apprehension as he regarded Leo: Kamui supposed this must be the first time he’d seen his uncle in person. Kaze bent down to whisper something in his ear, and he nodded mutely, his little chest heaving in a single deep breath.

Leo took the second crown from Niles, and dropped to one knee before Shigure, so that their heads were level. He had already explained his reasons for holding the ceremony now to Kamui (namely, to hush certain of his dissenters, who had begun putting it about that Leo was intentionally usurping a crown that was his legitimate nephew’s by rights), but it was still a little odd that he had incorporated this into his coronation. The acknowledgement of the king’s heir was usually its own separate ceremony, traditionally held when the heir came of age at twenty. Kamui had been ten, the first time Xander had come to call with his circlet across his brow; she remembered how she and Leo had spent much of the day pestering him to let them try it on. Once upon a time, the memory had made her laugh, but now it felt more like grim foreshadowing.

“Here let it be recorded,” said Leo, as he arranged the circlet on Shigure’s hair as neatly as could be managed without directly touching the boy, “that I am to be followed in the line of succession by the Crown Prince Shigure of Nohr, in the event of my death or abdication. Be thou for the people, Prince Shigure.”

He punctuated the end of the sentence with a prim little half-smile; Shigure just stared blankly at him, head tilted to the side. Leo muttered something to him that must have been a Hoshidan translation; he mouthed a little “oh” and nodded.

Another wave of applause circulated the room; as they turned to face it, both king and prince were wearing identical expressions of politely-repressed discomfort.

“The coronation ceremony is now complete,” concluded Camilla. “May King Leo rule in glory over our great kingdom forever.”

King Leo. It was still surreal to hear anyone call him that, but even more so coming from Camilla. And yet, as he took his place on the throne, with the light of the candles above almost forming a nimbus around him, he did almost look like a king. Not the imposing king his father was, or the statuesque king Xander would have been; more like the kings in the sagas they’d read together in the fortress - the Hero-King Marth, or Alm of Valentia. Young men who had risen to the throne by working tirelessly for what they believed in. But, she mused warmly, where they had brought peace and prosperity to their lands by using their legendary weapons to slay dragons, Leo would see it done by using his to coax life forth from frigid soil.

* * *

 

Leo quietly cursed that he hadn’t thought to have any of the food brought to him. That mouthful of toast he’d had with Kamui was the only thing he’d eaten all day, and the aromas of berry-glazed swan, buttered truffles, and fresh bread rolls taunted him maddeningly from the other side of the screen.

Still, he’d be able (and indeed expected) to join the guests below the dais when he’d finished his business here. Peering through the gap between the screen and the wall, he could see that someone had saved him an empty seat at the table laid out for the Hoshidan royal family, between Kamui and Camilla. Leo had found himself peering through the gap a lot, over the course of the banquet; the downside to not being present for it was that he wasn’t in a position to iron out any disputes that might arise. It made him more than a little apprehensive: he was used to being the one who moved about on the ground, quietly slipping the right words into the right ears to see that whatever Xander wanted done, got done. Standing at centre stage, his every word an announcement, was a role he hadn’t rehearsed for.

So far, though, it seemed to be running smoothly enough (or so he tried to convince himself). A few of the Nohrian nobles looked a tad indignant that Camilla had chosen to snub them in favour of the Hoshidans (in truth, he supposed she must have chosen to sit with Kamui, but from a Nohrian nationalist’s perspective that was probably even worse), but there hadn’t been any poisonings or declarations of war as yet, which was more than Leo had allowed himself to hope for.

Camilla did look a little happier, he noted with some relief. She still called for her cup to be refilled more often than anyone else at table, even some of the gouty old lords he’d been bound by political obligation to invite; but she spoke animatedly to Queen Orochi and Kamui, who sat on either side of her. However, where Queen Orochi laughed often and heartily throughout the conversation, Kamui appeared to spend most of it nodding distractedly. Her eyes kept wandering back to stare inquiringly up at the dais, tilting her head to the side in the same way Siegkat sometimes did when she was especially curious about something. It had been a tic of Kamui’s all her life; Leo was never quite sure whether he found it endearing in Kamui because it was such a catlike gesture, or whether he found it endearing in cats because it was a mannerism he had come to associate with Kamui.

He shook his head to clear it; much as his gaze would be fixed on Kamui for most of this evening’s festivities, his objective here was supposed to be monitoring her reactions, not swooning over her every movement. There’d be time enough for that in the months that followed, Leo mused ruefully. He sighed, and turned away from the screen.

“Has the fated hour yet tolled, milord?”

Gods only knew how long Odin had been standing behind him; Leo started so sharply at his sudden appearance that the crown nearly fell off his head. It was difficult to tell whether it was nerves or genuine amusement that made him laugh at that; more probably it was both.

“Geez, Odin, don’t sneak up on me like that. Giving me a heart attack now would technically count as regicide,” he quipped. “But yes, I suppose we’re ready now. You can go tell that lot to get into position.”

He allowed himself another, wryer laugh, as Odin bounded over to talk to the actors posturing behind them. The play had been one of his better ideas, certainly: his main objective aside, this particular use of the dais allowed him to sidestep the risk of appearing to favour or snub any of their guests, and presented the new king as a patron of the arts and of local businesses. This solution came at a price, however: Odin had now been exposed to the inner workings of the theatre. They had only brought the actors in three weeks ago, having spent a week working on the play; but those three weeks had proven to be more than enough time for Odin’s speech patterns to become even more florid than they usually were. For a start, he had taken to counting on his fingers as he spoke, trying to fit everything he said into the rhythm of iambic pentameter, with varying degrees of success. He had not, as yet, slipped any _hey nonny nonnys_ into his conversation, but it was probably only a matter of time.

Still, he was obviously enjoying himself, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Leo felt his smile emerge without having to coax it out, as he signalled to Laslow to part the screen enough for him to pass.

Again, it was quite uncomfortable, the way the entire hall fell silent as he took his place in front of the screen. He forced himself to ignore the other eyes on him, and focus solely on the only ones that mattered in this hour. They were alight with warmth and curiosity, as she tilted her head to the side again with an encouraging smile.

“Well,” he began, addressing his words to the room at large, but never taking his eyes off Kamui. “I _was_ about to ask if I could have your attention, please; but it seems I already have it. Again, I’d like to thank you for coming here today, and express my hope that you’re enjoying your stay here so far. I regret that I was not in a position to join you, but I found myself unavoidably detained by the final preparations for this evening’s entertainment, which I’m sure you must have been curious about.” He gestured to the screen behind him with a flourish. It had been designed specifically for the purpose by Laslow, who had apparently worked in the theatre before becoming Xander’s retainer; and he, Leo and Odin had spent an entire day painting its wooden slats with stylised images depicting scenes from the play. Sure enough, most of the people in the crowd certainly did look curious, but not all of them in a positive way. A few of them looked confused; a few others eyed it warily. Over in her seat with the rest of the Mage Academy’s staff, Nyx appeared to have cottoned on to what he was planning just from the artwork; Leo had to physically resist the urge to wince at the glare she was giving him.

“Now, I’m aware that tourneys or dancing are more traditional forms of entertainment for events such as this,” he continued mildly, “but, in light of the changes I mean to make to how the country is run, I thought it might be appropriate to try something a little different here. With this in mind, I have enlisted the cast and crew of the excellent King’s Theatre, here in Windmire, to perform a play in five acts for our amusement. The play is entitled _The Dark Lord’s Gambit_ , and was written by one of my own retainers, especially for this evening’s festivities. So, without further ado: _The Dark Lord’s Gambit_. Thank you.” He inclined his head stiffly to them, and turned to take his place at the back of the dais, leaving a trail of polite but bewildered applause in his wake.

Odin was waiting there, practically in tears. He spoke in a series of squeaks, of which the only discernible words were, “Milord, you… wherefore…”

Leo held up his hands in a halting gesture. “You're going to have to calm down, Odin. I don’t speak much bird.”

Odin swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Okay, from the top. - milord, you spoke naught at all of your own hand in the scribing of our mythic tale. Have you no wish to share the praise you earned? Why channel their adulation to me?”

“Well, it is mostly your work, in truth,” Leo shrugged. “You wrote most of the dialogue. I only came up with the bare bones of the thing. Besides, it doesn’t really look good for a king to be taking time away from his own duties to write fiction, does it?”

Odin nodded solemnly. “So be it then, milord; I shall present those words you smithed clandestinely by night! Entrust them now to me, and cloak yourself in shade: a ghostly writer, if you will…”

“You’re getting better at that. Anyway, do you have your effects sorted out? - er, no pun intended.”

Odin held up his stack of tomes with a grin, which Leo returned.

“Good, good. I’ll be monitoring the audience’s reactions like we discussed, but let me know if you notice anything I might have missed.”

“It shall be as you command, milord,” Odin enthused, but then his grin faded; he paused for a moment to count on his fingers, mouthing what he’d said. His face fell.

“Let’s save that style for actors now, my friend,” Leo attempted.

Odin nodded, honestly looking a little relieved. “Aye, milord.”

It had been Laslow’s suggestion that Leo and Odin take charge of the lighting and effects; apparently they’d had a dark mage handling those things in the theatre where he’d worked. He had also suggested they use illusory magic for some of the effects, but Leo had put his foot down there: no theatrical spectacle was worth dredging up memories of being made to wear some half-sibling’s face, to con Father’s mistresses out of any information Mother could use as ammunition against them later.

Once he had arranged himself on a stool in the far corner and flipped Brynhildr open, Leo cast the spell to dim the lights in the hall, and gave the signal to Laslow and Niles to open the screen all the way.

The first actor to appear onstage was the one playing the antagonist. Both his appearance and his character had been kept intentionally vague; just defined enough to evoke Anankos’s image in the minds of those who had heard of him, without actually invoking the curse. His face was concealed by a mask, based on what Leo remembered of the design on the scrying-tablet, and he was shrouded in a black cloak, made up of strips of fabric that billowed in clouds behind him (courtesy of a curious spell Odin had apparently picked up from somewhere, unlike any Leo had ever heard of, which blew a gust of wind in whichever direction he cast it). Judging by the audience’s reactions, it was a suitably disturbing image; Shigure had buried his face in his father’s sleeve, and even a few of the adults in the room looked alarmed. To Leo’s dismay, though, a quick scan of the room yielded no spark of recognition in any face besides Nyx’s.

Kamui, meanwhile, was watching raptly, lips slightly parted in awe at the spectacle. It struck Leo stingingly that this was likely the first play she’d ever seen; he found himself wishing that he’d put a little more effort into writing it.

He didn’t have time to muse on it, though; the villain spread his arms, letting his cloak flow even more; which was Leo’s cue to cast the spell to set the actor's voice echoing about the room in a rough approximation of Anankos’s thunderous whispers, as he began his opening speech.

 **“** I am the wings of despair, and I do; the breath of ruin, and ruined am I. In bygone ages was I named a god, by mortal men whose tongues have turned to dust. I cannot recollect my name myself: my name the rain has beaten to a rift, borne in the stone that was my temple’s walls, and nevermore been uttered by a soul...”

Not for the first time, Leo winced as he heard the words spoken aloud, and not only because the actor in the mask had felt the need to punctuate them with such exaggerated hand gestures. The words had looked fine when he’d written them, and sounded fine in rehearsal; but now that they were under the scrutiny of an actual audience, he silently thanked all the gods that he’d managed to fob accountability for writing the dialogue off onto Odin.

“Icons they carved once, and stone tablets,” the mock Anankos continued, “and proudly bended knee before my face; and yet, in time, they slash’d my face away, and painted their new god’s across my skull...”

It was, Leo found himself musing, rather impressive that Odin had come up with such a character motive at such short notice, even if it was a cliché lifted from any number of those games they sometimes played together involving oddly-shaped dice; credit where due, all Odin had had to work with was a brief note summarising the character in a vague enough way to sidestep the curse, and a series of vetoes on any ideas he’d suggested that would have made it less obviously a reference to Anankos.

“I rage against their heresy in vain. I salt the earth, ne’er more to yield viands; I bid the sun to turn away her face. And still my acolytes their god forget: they beg their new god for deliverance. So let them turn from me, and all be damned! My earthborn children let me now disown; I’ll scatter their remains across the land, to fecundate it, and beget anew a race more pure, and righteous-soul’d, than these insects who call themselves humanity.”

Once Anankos had concluded his sinister soliloquy, Niles and Laslow unfolded the screen over the dais again, and everything became a frantic bustle of shifting props and set pieces. When they reopened, it was on a jumble of furniture borrowed from various rooms in the castle. This time, three actors entered: a portly man in a tin crown, who introduced himself, by way of another paragraph-long monologue, as the king of some country Odin had invented; a man introduced as the crown prince, played by an actor who looked to be around the same age as the man playing the king; and the play’s hero, the king’s younger son, portrayed with fluctuating degrees of believability by a girl called Kate.

Odin made an indelicate little sound, just barely loud enough for Leo to hear, when the younger prince began speaking. This casting choice was still a sore spot for him. In all honesty, Leo hadn’t been sure how to feel about the prospect of being played by a girl himself; but it was tradition, in Nohrian theatre, to have young male characters played by women, just as it was traditional that female characters should be played by men. Unfortunately, Odin had had his heart set on playing the lead role himself, an intention he’d only admitted to after they’d cast the actors. After three days of trying to avoid looking at Odin’s dejected face, Leo had finally broached the subject to Kate, who was understandably reluctant to give up the biggest break of her career to a man with A) no formal acting experience and B) a prestigious and lucrative enough job already. As both rivals refused to budge, the dispute had gradually become less and less civil; having left the room in exasperation when they reached the name-calling stage, Leo wasn’t sure how they’d settled it, but they had both been holding raw steaks over their eyes during rehearsal that day.

There wasn’t much for Leo to do in this scene; it was mostly comedic havering, a spot of light relief after the ominous scene preceding it. He focussed instead on the audience’s reactions; the allegories that formed the underpinning of the play’s narrative had had to be very carefully hidden, as much to avoid offending any of Father’s sympathisers in the nobility as to avoid the curse (although a small, catty part of his brain quipped that people who genuinely agreed with Father’s later policies _were_ the real curse). So far, though, nobody looked terribly nettled - apart from Nyx, who was still glaring daggers, in a way that was all the more conspicuous for being the only one of her colleagues not laughing at the dialogue. Odin hadn’t noticed anything either; then again, he had spent most of the scene dejectedly fiddling with his tome.

Once their conversation had concluded, the hero delivered a last soliloquy, lamenting his separation from his beloved, the princess of the neighbouring kingdom, whom his father had forbidden him from marrying, as he read her most recent letter.

“I thought we’d agreed to cut that subplot,” Leo hissed to Odin.

“But milord, those scenes were your magnum opus of wordsmithery! The toll of hopeless longing rings forth with every utterance!”

“I daresay, but she’s…” Leo just barely managed to bite his tongue before the words _in the audience_ could escape; for whatever reason, his retainers still liked and respected him, and he was damned if he was going to let that change.

In any case, the lady herself clearly hadn’t picked up on the parallels to her own dynamic with Leo. Far from being perturbed, Kamui was sitting far forward in her seat, with her hands clasped under her chin and her eyes wide and glittering with emotion. When the soliloquy concluded, she was actually wiping away tears. For someone so upbeat and sensible, she’d always had a peculiar weakness for reading chivalric romances of dubious quality, Leo remembered wryly.

Once the princes had made their exeunt, the king settled down on his throne, and fell asleep (a fact signified by his sitting bolt upright, with his palms together and his head resting on the back of one hand). While he “slept”, Anankos entered, and set about pouring poison in the king’s ear. The king sprang from his chair onto his knees; after a fit of exaggerated choking and moaning that only served to make it obvious that the actor had never actually watched anyone die before, he finally fell to the ground, head first and feet last. As in real life, the god then possessed the corpse; this development was portrayed first by his miming pulling a puppet’s strings, to lift the king to his feet, and then by taking hold of the king’s arms and gently moving them into odd contortions, trailing his fingers lingeringly along them in a way that had looked a good deal less flirtatious in Leo’s head, when he had written the stage directions.

“See, we didn’t need to write in another romantic subplot,” he quipped to Odin, out of the corner of his mouth. “We already had a perfectly good one.”

* * *

 

The following couple of acts passed without any unexpected reactions from the audience that Leo or Odin could see. Except, perhaps, for those aristocrats (a word which here means “gouty old men”) who had given up any pretence of interest in the story, and were sleeping off their mead with snores loud enough to be heard from the dais. It certainly did not speak well of their grasp of basic theatre etiquette; even little Shigure, who was far too young to understand any of what was happening, had managed to sit still and quiet throughout; although, upon glancing at his blanching face, Leo supposed he might just be too frightened by the violent imagery. Hard-hearted though it was, he made a mental note to take the boy to the theatre regularly: the Nohrian court was a harsh, harsh place, and Shigure would do far better to learn that by watching players on a stage pretend to stab each other with prop daggers, than by blundering into a situation that would end with him staring down the pointy end of a real one. That much Leo could personally vouch for.

Kamui was one of the few people whose interest still seemed genuine, rather than politely feigned. The novelty of her first play must not have worn off yet; she sat through those dialogue-heavy scenes Leo had honestly only included to make the play seem as if it had a legitimate plot, with as much enthusiasm as she watched the battles, the murders, and (much to the tightening of many knots in Leo’s stomach) the love scenes. Still, he mused grimly, as the screen closed again and Odin opened his Fimbulvetr tome, it was her reaction to this next scene that mattered most.

As Odin cast a veneer of ice over the stage, Leo set about growing willows and flag-lilies round its edges. It didn’t look _exactly_ like a lake, but it would be close enough when lit from the right angle. Leo had intended to set this scene in a forest, but Odin had insisted that a lake would be a more impressive visual, and in all honesty, he hadn’t been wrong. 

In this scene, the prince was to meet with his beloved princess (played, with true charm and grace, by Brian, a gruff baritone in a wig with a pair of coconut shells stuffed down his front), intending to carry out his father’s instruction to kill her. This scene had been almost entirely Leo’s own work, though he’d thought it had been scrapped from the final draft; in spite of the glaringly obvious parallels to the encounter with Kamui in the Woods of the Forlorn, absolutely nobody who had been present for that sortie appeared to think anything of it.

After much deliberation (by way of a soliloquy that was likely the single most pretentious thing Leo had ever written; which, when measured against the rest of this play, was really saying something), the prince had dropped his weapon before the princess. The couple embraced with rather more fervour than was strictly necessary, and reaffirmed their love in an exchange so nauseatingly flowery that Leo had a hard time believing he’d actually written it. He kept his gaze resolutely fixed on Brynhildr’s pages here; he did not _dare_ look up to see Kamui’s reaction to all that.

Once the lovers had finally extricated themselves from each other, and set about wondering what was to be done about the king’s increasingly corrupt regime, the princess had suggested they seek the advice of the oracle who lived in the lake’s waters. The oracle’s entrance was one of the effects Leo and Odin were both proudest of: by fanning the vapours rising off the ice with Odin’s wind spell, they were able to create a plume of fog that enveloped the stage, serving as a convenient and suitably dramatic cover, under which the actor playing the oracle (a solidly built man in his late forties) could run onto the stage undetected.

Kamui sat bolt upright at the sight of him (or her, Leo supposed: she would be seeing the people on the dais as characters, rather than actors). Obviously, they hadn’t been able to make him look exactly like Azura, but they had robed him in white, and put a blue wig on him. Lord Suzukaze, too, had shown a rare trace of emotion; but in his case it was sadness rather than suspicion.

Kamui’s interest grew still more pronounced as the oracle handed the prince the crystal.

This scene had been a difficult one to write: how did one go about conveying the phantasmic visions that filled one’s head if one stared into Azura’s crystal, in the medium of low-budget theatre? In the end, Leo had admitted defeat and shamelessly ripped off a better play: the crystal summoned an apparition of the dead king. The king recounted the story of his death to his son, in a speech that had been a bloody nightmare to write; Leo shuddered at the memory of scribbling it down at three in the morning, hands shaking from a combination of too much coffee and the knowledge that one word too many could kill him on the spot.

Quite a few people reacted negatively to this scene, but not in the way Leo had hoped. A susurrus of stifled criticism carpeted the floor before him, of which he only managed to catch a few snippets.

“… can you even remember what’s happening here…”

“… how long is this thing…”

“… such an obvious ripoff of…”

Ironically, the professors and mages he’d invited in the hopes that they might recognise something appeared to be the most merciless in their literary analysis. Leo supposed ruefully that he really should have known better than to half-ass a play he’d intended to show to people who probably knew real playwrights personally. Nyx, meanwhile, looked a little relieved, beyond her usual veil of annoyance.

He turned his gaze to Kamui, and for the first and last time in his life, was heartened to see that she looked troubled. It wasn't like the horror she had displayed over the play’s more violent scenes, where she had jumped in her seat and covered her eyes, peeking out between her fingers: here her brow was furrowed, as if in the face of a memory she’d tried to repress. The spark had left her eyes, darkening them from the colour of autumn to the colour of blood.

The shadow clouding her gentle features only deepened steadily as the last two acts continued on. She made a show of hiding her unease, but her reactions to the story unfolding before her were delayed; laughing and crying with her companions, rather than at the dialogue. It came to a head in the play’s final scene, in which the prince’s warnings regarding the king’s possession went ignored, and every remaining character was slain in one final battle that left the dais drowning in pigs’ blood and littered with groaning men in motley. The prince had uttered his dying speech (a theatrical trope Leo had always wished he could enjoy; regrettably, he was too familiar with the sound of men being cut off, mid-sentence, by the death rattle, to properly appreciate the romance of flawlessly-enunciated last words) and expired with rather more dignity than most of the others: if this play had any saving grace, it was that Kate’s performance throughout had probably been the closest thing to subtlety as the medium of Nohrian theatre would allow; much to Odin’s irritation (“Ugh, she isn’t even _posing_ …”). Anankos entered, cast a condescending eye over the corpses strewn about, and exulted at his victory.

Below the dais, Kamui’s expression had hardened into one he knew well: it was the steel-clad apprehension she had shown in the Woods of the Forlorn; and on the grand staircase leading to the throne room, just over a year ago; and in half his nightmares since.

* * *

The applause they bowed to was polite, rather than enthusiastic.

Fortunately, it seemed that Odin and the actors were all oblivious to this fact: they took the praise from such an illustrious audience as the highest honour, and were still buzzing as they went to sit down at the table laid out for them below the dais. Their jubilation was charming, and more than a little infectious; Leo found himself smiling faintly as he made his own descent.

The most diplomatic course of action here, he supposed, would be to make a circuit of the hall, speaking courteously but briefly to everyone without appearing to favour any one guest over the others; but these people’s good opinion of him would be worth little if he let Anankos tear them down for recruitment into his army of corpses. With this objective in mind (and no other, he reminded himself), Leo had intended to go directly to Kamui, with the excuse that he should defer to etiquette and sit with his nephew and sister; but was waylaid by some force behind him that pulled him lurching backwards.

Nyx had one foot on the hem of his mantle, pinning it to the floor.

“Um. Hey, Nyx,” he attempted, adjusting his crown (gods, it still felt strange to call it that); the force of his near-fall had knocked it askew. “Good to see you again.”

“Explain,” she said flatly. Even when looking down at it from at least a foot above, the glower she had on was mildly terrifying; Leo had to repress many, many flashbacks to his dealings with a particularly tyrannical governess he and Elise had once had, and the way she would pinch their ears whenever they asked a question she didn’t know the answer to.

“Did you not get my note?” He kept his gaze resolutely fixed on a point above her head as he spoke.

“You mean the one that just said _‘Nyx. He survived. L’_?” Dissonantly with her words, she was speaking perfectly calmly, as if making small talk; which was in itself a lot more intimidating than if she had sounded angry. “Yes, I got it, but that’s beside the point. I’m asking you what fit of mental alienation led you to believe this… _pageantry_ was the best way to act on that information. What made you think it was worth endangering the lives of your playwright and actors, in the name of alerting people to his presence. Any one of those lines could have triggered the curse, as soon as it was written down or spoken aloud; I’d have half a mind to pinch your ears, if you hadn’t left them on such a high shelf.”

“And you’d be right to,” he conceded. “If it’s any consolation, I tested most of the dialogue myself during the writing process, to make sure that wouldn’t happen.”

This assurance did nothing to mollify Nyx. “Well, that was even more foolish of you. If an actor died onstage, that could be regarded as unfortunate; but if you’d evaporated while you were alone in your study, halfway through editing some manuscript, all knowledge you have of the wyrm would have died with you.”

“It was one of my more reckless ideas, I’ll admit,” Leo sighed. “I suppose I was panicking a little. I don’t know if you remember the stone tablet he used as a way into my father’s head, but… well, suffice to say I found it, and had to dispose of it at very short notice.”

“Ah.” Nyx’s expression softened a little at that. Just a little; he was still on thin ice. “Just... try to carry more regard for human life in future, child. Bringing about the end of an innocent life is a blot on the soul that may never scrub off."

Leo nodded, trying to repress the image of Elise's icy form. "I'm well aware. I'll be careful."

"Good. Now, did your observations this evening yield any results, child?”

Leo allowed himself to breathe; if she was calling him _child_ again, he was probably safe. “Just the one. Princess Kamui of Hoshido. She’s been looking apprehensive ever since the scene with Azura’s crystal.”

“Kamui.” Nyx released him from her glare, to let her eyes wander pensively to where Kamui sat behind him. Leo supposed Kamui must have caught her eye, and smiled at her; Nyx looked a little taken aback, but inclined her head in a stiff courtesy.

“You know her? I don’t suppose Azura ever, ah… brought her to visit, as it were?” It was a struggle to keep his voice level here. If Kamui knew about Valla already, it would be that much easier to explain Anankos’s resurgence. The fact that she had made no move to prevent Leo from uprooting Shigure would imply that she already knew about the curse; it was even possible that her reason for returning to Nohr was that _she_ knew Anankos had returned, and was now trying to gauge how much Leo knew, in the hopes of formulating a plan with him.

These hopes were swiftly dashed, though, when Nyx shook her head. “No, I only know _of_ her. Gunter spoke of her sometimes, but she didn’t… descend, shall we say, when he did.”

“Damn.” He sighed. “Nyx, you’re a teacher. Don’t suppose you have any advice on planning a field trip?”

“To the Canyon? Wear rainboots. But I’m not a teacher, I’m a bursar,” she pointed out. “Speaking of which, you haven’t responded to any of my queries regarding our budget…”

Oh, bugger.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Leo interjected quickly. “I’d better go and discuss all this with Kamui now. You know, prevent the end of the world as we know it, and all that…”

“This isn’t over, child,” said Nyx grimly, but she released his mantle anyway. Leo backed away from her, hands raised in mock surrender; she made a quiet humming sound that might have been a laugh.

Camilla was still talking to King Ryouma and Queen Orochi when he approached. Kamui heralded his arrival with a cry of “Leo!” and a flash of a smile that was another near case of regicide.

“Ah, there you are, darling,” said Camilla companionably. “We were just talking about you.”

“I dread to think,” he said, with a rueful grin.

“Oh, all good things,” Queen Orochi assured him. “Your sister was just telling me that the decor in the throne room was done using spells that don’t draw their power from the earth? I’d never heard of such a thing.”

Leo nodded. “Brynhildr. It was used for some of the effects in the play as well. At the moment, Brynhildr is the only tome capable of generating its own energy, as one of the divine weapons; but I’m told some of the Mage Academy’s researchers are trying to develop something similar.”

“Good,” she said emphatically. “Speaking of, I heard the Academy’s chancellor would be here?”

“Oh. Yes.” Leo scanned the room for him. “The entire faculty’s here. The Chancellor is that elderly gentleman over there, who - actually, I think he’s asleep.” They glanced over at the table farthest to the left of theirs; the Chancellor was sitting far forward in his seat, with the end of his beard in a gravy boat.

“Not for much longer, he’s not,” said the queen, wickedly. “Sorry to abandon you, but I have some business to take care of.”

“Orochi, wait! - and she’s off.” King Ryouma sighed, but his tone remained sanguine. “At least she’s enjoying herself, I suppose. I just hope this doesn’t end with anyone getting hexed again…”

“Hurry back, dear!” Camilla called after her; it seemed she’d made a friend. The Chancellor hadn’t, though: it was difficult to see what Queen Orochi had done to waken him, but he started back with a jolt, spraying gravy across the table. Shigure in particular seemed to find this very amusing.

As everyone else at table resumed their conversations, Leo gestured to the empty chair beside Kamui. “Mind if I perch?”

Kamui had been rather subdued ever since he’d mentioned the play, and was absently raking a little pile of peas around her plate with her fork, without actually eating any; she jumped in her seat with a little yelp when he tapped her on the shoulder.

“Ah, s-sorry. Of course, of course, sit down,” she said shakily, when she recovered. “How long was I spaced out for?”

“Oh, only a few years,” he replied sweetly, as he took his seat; Kamui punched his shoulder lightly. “Still, you were miles away. Something on your mind?”

“Er, yes. - wait, I mean no! - I mean…” She paused for a moment. “The play was very good.”

“Glad you enjoyed it. I’ll pass the sentiment along to Odin.” Leo helped himself to as much meat and bread as he could get away with; most of the food would have gone cold by now, but the play had been a good three hours long, and he was at the stage where he’d have eaten his own fingers quite happily.

Kamui was silent for a long moment; but it was the kind of fidgeting, shallow-breathed silence that usually meant she was about to speak, but was still finding the words.

“The magic effects and the battles were really cool,” she continued, finally. “And the romance was very moving. But, um.”

She paused again, as if debating internally whether to continue. Leo nodded patiently, giving her time to decide on the right words; courtesy aside, in this particular context one could hardly afford to use the wrong ones. When she finally spoke again, it was with a deep breath, and so quietly that Leo almost didn't catch it over the din of all the other conversations going on at the table.

“Gods, I know this’ll sound pretty weird, but…” She was looking him directly in the eye, her amaranthine gaze questioning. “About that scene by the lake. With the oracle?”

“Ah, I had a feeling that might come up. Did you follow the allegory there?”

“Some of it, I think. You were always better at that lit-crit stuff than I was, though.” She was smiling now; from an outsider perspective, this was an amiable conversation, and they were speaking of most ordinary things. Leo alone was near enough to see the faint quirk to her brow, the darkening of her eyes from ruby to crimson; that subtle sign that her smile was for the benefit of those around her, rather than an honest expression of how she felt.

“I'm not sure how much of it I understand myself, in truth,” Leo admitted; it wasn’t a lie anyway. “I’d be happy to discuss it with you in-depth when we have the time, though.”

“If it’s not too much trouble?”

He returned her smile; again, to anyone else, it would simply look like he was enjoying the conversation, but he knew Kamui would recognise his relief at being understood. “None whatsoever.”

She laughed quietly. “Then I look forward to it.”

They fell silent for a moment, but it was the same silence that had always descended whenever Leo and Xander sat together: a warm, comfortable silence, of the sort that meant neither of them had any more work to do today, or any other problems that needed discussing. He was picking at a bit of cold swan when Kamui spoke again.

“So how’s the new hat fitting?”

Leo shrugged. “It’s lighter than I expected, but it does slide about a bit. I think it was designed for someone with a smaller head; then again, most hats are.”

She laughed at that. “Suits you, though. Even if it is strange to see you wear it.”

“Of course it suits me,” said Leo loftily. “I make everything look good.”

“Even inside-out arming-doublets?”

She cackled as Leo frantically looked down at his sleeve to check. He shot her an exaggerated scowl. “That was low, Kamui.”

“Ha, I’m sorry,” she said, in a tone that made it blatant that she wasn’t.

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” she admitted, her words laced with another chuckle. It had been so long since he’d last heard the sound of Kamui’s laugh; the thought that he would be hearing it on a regular basis, even if only for a few months, was enormously soothing.

Leo hadn't lied: the crown did feel lighter than he’d expected it would. But sitting here now, with Kamui laughing at his side, listening with half an ear to Camilla’s banter with the king and queen of what had been an enemy nation just over a year ago, he barely felt its weight at all. This entire day had been a celebration of his ascension to the throne, but it was only in this moment that there seemed to him to be anything worth celebrating in that. Not only on a personal level, either: everything about this scene exemplified his plans for the future of his country. A country that cooperated with foreign nations, rather than attempting to annex them; where the aim of government-funded magic research was to improve the lives of civilians, rather than to find new spells to weaponise; where writers and actors were held in higher honour than tourney knights.

And tomatoes, he mused, as he ladled a portion of pasta onto his plate. Under his rule, all his people would have access to a regular supply of tomatoes. That was a basic human right, surely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gods, sorry this one ended up being a behemoth too;;; especially in light of the fact that, thanks to the hot weather, I've spent every one of the past 15 days feeling sleepy and stupid at best, and horrible and headachey at worst, so this probably isn't up to my usual standard. Still, can't go missing Leo's birthday, so I figured I'd just post it anyway and regret it tomorrow, haha.
> 
> \- This came up in the last chapter too, but yeah, “our” Leo is the second king to go by that name. I feel like most of Garon’s mistresses would name their children after previous ruling monarchs, to make a passive-aggressive point. Mariya strikes me as the type to name her son after one of those obscure kings who was good at what he did, but to such a degree that his reign ended up being so uneventfully pleasant that he was just too boring to merit a proper place in history. As such, Leo I was reduced to a bit of obscure trivia by her time, and pretty much lost to the ages by ours; hence, “our” Leo usually just gets referred to as King Leo. Ironically, in my headcanons, Xander is the only one not named for a king: he shares his name with a legendary knight, but Katerina chose the name to honour the retainer who took care of her when she was a kid.
> 
> \- On a similar note: yes, Kamui’s full name while she lived in Nohr was Kamui Corrin Krakenburg. This will never come up, since she’s never really used the name for anything: before the war, it was mostly just used on (faked) documentations of her birth and acknowledgement as Garon’s kid. In letters and such, she just signs herself as “Kamui”, in the manner of Pip, since it’s the only one of her names that her mother actually chose. She doesn’t take Leo’s surname for the same reason; in Birthright and Conquest, Foleo and Kana both inherit it from him, but on Revelation Kamui adopts Mikoto as her surname and all four of them use that.
> 
> \- PLINTH. IT IS THE KING OF WORDS, AND MY FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO USE IT WAS IN A CORONATION SCENE. PLINTH. PLINTH. *turns to camera* PLINTH.
> 
> \- I headcanon Kamui’s birthday as being some time in the autumn: it’s stated in the Japanese promotional materials that she’s just come of age at the start of the game, and then in the opening chapters of the manga it’s snowing in Nohr, and the maple trees are red in Hoshido. I kept the date vague here, but in my most recent Kamui run, I made her birthday September 22nd. It just seems appropriate for a dragon carrying a magic sword and a piece of cursed jewellery to share her birthday with Bilbo and Frodo, haha.
> 
> \- The advantage to writing fantasy is that you can mostly make up the traditions in the setting as you go along, but I may as well show my work, since it was so much fun to research. As with a lot of Nohrian cultural details in this fic, the few headcanons I didn’t lift shamelessly from Tolkien here are no-less-shamelessly lifted from my own country’s history: in Scottish coronations, it was customary for a court poet to recite the new monarch’s genealogy back to the first Scotsman, and the anointment is a thing that we still do in UK coronations (although IRL we use consecrated oil, rather than Actual Dragon Blood OMG™).
> 
> \- D&D absolutely exists in the FEverse, and the Leo Trio absolutely play it together, and Odin is absolutely the world’s best DM. You can’t change my mind.
> 
> \- “But Majou,” I hear you say, “that’s not proper iambic pentameter. The syllable count’s right, sure, but you’re supposed to alternate between short and long words.” To which I riposte: let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; make dust our parchment, and, with rainy eyes, write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
> 
> \- “But MAJOU,” I hear you say, more pressingly, “if crossdressing is a time-honoured tradition in Nohrian theatre, why does Leo have a problem with Foleo’s crossdressing?” To which I riposte: does he? I find that very hard to believe. He’s a sensible, empathetic boy who, I’m sure, will be a very understanding father when he’s good and ready. He’s too responsible to have kids before then, you understand. I mean, what are you saying, that he’d have a kid in the middle of a war, and then drop them in some kind of… hyperbolic time chamber, just so the player can see what the kids will look like without having to see him and Kamui pupate from their Cute Anime Twentysomething stage? Because THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN *looks into the camera like I’m on the hit TV show The Office*


	7. Toast Soldiers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which this fic’s inexplicable preoccupation with toast reaches its bitter culmination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Health and safety warning: this chapter contains copious amounts of toast, and as such is not gluten-free. Store this chapter in a cool, dry place. Avoid contact with eyes; if any gets in your eyes, quickly go and read a better fanfic.

 

> _“Dear Mother and Father,_
> 
> _How are you doing? Haha, I know it’s probably a little silly to ask that, considering there isn’t any way to send this to you, but it’s fun to pretend sometimes, right? I’m keeping well enough myself, as are my friends. O is as rambunctious as ever, and S grows prettier by the day (don’t tell her I said so, though - I’d like to come home with all my teeth still in my mouth!)._
> 
> _My new job is still going to take some getting used to, but having O as a coworker has been fun, and our boss seems a decent chap, if a bit pernickety. As to my other coworker, well… I’m not going to lie, he creeps me out a little! Almost every word that comes out of his mouth is an innuendo, and he tends to get too close when he’s talking to you. When I told S as much, though, she said, “you realise all he’s doing is talking to everyone the same way you talk to women, right?”, which I don’t think was very fair, but I guess she has a point. I’ll give the fellow a chance, haha._
> 
> _I still visit the ravens in the aviary when I can, although nowadays I have to pay these calls in the wee hours of the morning, before the staff show up: their head caretaker is a dusky beauty, with hair as black as the birds’ own wings, but when I pointed this out to her she didn’t seem to take it as a compliment. Even more regrettably, neither did her husband, who is quite a bit taller than me and built like a brick house. It’s a shame I have to miss out on that view now, but the one of the stars from the high window is very nearly as lovely._
> 
> _I think you’d get along well with the ravens, Father. They bite a little at first, but once they warm up to you they’re sweethearts. Sometimes I pass entire nights sitting by the window, looking out on the place I’m meant to go, and the ones kicking about outside their cages will always come and “talk” to me when I do. It’s as if they know what I came here for, and are scolding me to get on with it!_
> 
> _Anyway, I’ve rambled long enough. I’d say give my love to the little one, but if you are as I remember you, I know you’ll give him all the love in the world and then some, for as long as you can. I look forward to the day I can drop by again, and give him a glimpse of what a fine, suave gentleman he’ll grow up to be, haha!_
> 
> _With a big kiss for Mother and a bear hug for Father,_
> 
> _I____.”_
> 
> \- A letter found under a floorboard in the living quarters of the royal family’s retainers at Castle Krakenburg, discovered in 1602. The letter itself is undated, and the signature appears to have been cut out, but it could not have been written later than the early 14th century: the aviary tower was destroyed during the siege of 1320, and was rebuilt with pigeon-holes rather than cages, on the grounds that the royal family at the time considered them barbaric.

 

“Tomato, Selena?”

Laslow held the frying-pan out to her, displaying its contents: some slices of tomato, six fat liver sausages, and a few rashers of bacon. She wrinkled her nose. “What, fried? Gross.”

He spread his free hand in an easy shrug, and turned to Odin. “All the more for us then, eh?”

“All the more indeed! Bequeath unto me the Blood-Red Vegetafruit, that I might absorb its life-giving properties,” said Odin, with a flourish that nearly knocked his toast off the fork and into the fire.

Selena shook her head, with an exasperated little sound, as she took the toasting-fork from him. “I’ll never understand what goes on in either of your heads. I mean, look how much oil you’ve put on that thing. What’s the point to its even being a tomato anymore?”

“Adds a bit of colour to the plate,” said Laslow airily. “It’s like my mother always said. ‘The first bite is with your eyes’.”

“Well, my eyes are getting indigestion.” She set about buttering the toast, scraping the surface with the knife as if it had made some unkind remark about her mother. A lesser man might have said that she was scowling; but to describe her in that way would be to disregard the spark in her eyes, the faint flush to her cheeks, the proud set of her jaw.

It was a shame to turn away from her, but Laslow had to watch the pan. “Guess you won’t be wanting any bacon, then?”

“I-I never said that!”

Laslow chuckled quietly. Since his appointment as a third retainer to Lord Leo last year, he’d spent the better part of each day with Odin, but breakfast and supper were the only times they saw Selena. The three of them had an hour together each morning, to wolf down a quick breakfast and engage in a bit of banter, before she would be called away to keep Lady Camilla company, and he and Odin would have to go and help Lord Leo with whatever project he had on the go today.

His Grace was an odd duck with regards to his work, Laslow mused idly. Naturally, Lord Xander had kept himself just as busy, but Laslow’s hand in that had mostly consisted of helping him rehearse for parliamentary debates, or of keeping him supplied with a steady stream of coffee while he slaved over his paperwork. Laslow was still called upon to do these things under Lord Leo, of course; but just as often, he’d be asked to re-pot and water plants, clean alchemy flasks, sharpen scalpels, set up the telescope, quiz Lord Leo on his memory and understanding of Nohrian law and history, pick up some funny-smelling packages from the apothecary in the underground, and stitch labels into the insides of Lord Leo’s clothes pointing out which side was the front and which was the back. It was a much bigger workload, but in all honesty, Laslow was grateful for the distraction: if Lord Leo kept him occupied, it was a wee bit easier to avoid thinking about why he was taking his orders from Lord Leo to begin with. Perhaps that was even intentional - if his rapport with Odin and Niles was anything to go by, the king seemed like the kind of employer who made an effort to get along with his staff. Honestly, he seemed like an agreeable fellow in general, and the work environment he’d cultivated was one Laslow would have killed to work in eight years ago. But no matter how entertaining the banter was (from Lord Leo himself, as much as from Niles and Odin), or how comfortingly nostalgic it was to be surrounded by the texts and tools of the trade for dark mages again, there was just no getting past the feeling that he should be in the other study; the one across the hall that had remained locked and untouched for more than a year now.

Once the sausages were nicely brown, and the bacon was good and crispy, the three of them sat down at the trestle table. Despite its size, they would always sit huddled together in a conspiratorial cluster at one end, making it feel even bigger and emptier. The communal kitchen was intended for use by all the royal family’s retainers, but it had been ages since Laslow had seen anyone besides the three of them use it. Niles had started taking all his meals with Lord Leo, to make sure Lord Leo _had_ meals; and gods only knew where, when, or even _if_ Beruka ate. Still, it was nice to talk with his friends alone sometimes.

Nice, and today, very important.

Selena was the first to bring it up. “So, about the other night. I have a bone to pick with you guys.”

“As is your wont, Selena the Mordacious,” said Odin, between mouthfuls of bacon.

“Hey, I know what all that means!” she snapped; then paused. “Well. I don’t know what “mordacious” means. - but I can infer from context, dammit!”

“All right, all right,” Laslow soothed. “What’s on your mind, dear lady?”

She snorted. “Oh, nothing much. Just wanted to know which of you was boneheaded enough to tell Lord Leo about our mission.”

He and Odin exchanged a glance. They had both been waiting for a free moment to raise this with Selena ever since the play: all of yesterday, and the day before, had been spent fetching and carrying for the coronation guests’ departure yesterday evening. It had struck Laslow as a bit of a waste, to travel all the way to another country and not stay long enough to take in any of its sights; but then, he supposed, Lord Leo and Lady Camilla had only stayed in Hoshido one day for King Ryoma’s. Royals just weren’t allowed holidays, it seemed.

Selena was still waiting for an answer, tapping her fingernail impatiently on the table.

“And there’s the rub,” said Odin, scratching at the back of his neck with his famous twitching hand. “Lord Leo modestly denies his hand in smithing the words, but in truth, Laslow and I both have held to our silent oaths this entire time.”

Selena blinked at him for a moment, as the implication behind his words sank in. The moment it did was heralded by the spoon she’d been using to sugar her tea falling from her fingers with a splash and a clatter. She made no move to mop up the splatters on the table (nor, even more unusually for her, to order Laslow to mop them up); it didn’t even look like she’d noticed. For once, she didn’t seem to know what to say.

“You mean…?”

“He seems to have found out about it on his own, yes,” Laslow nodded.

“Well, not utterly unaided,” put in Odin. “The mythic tableau of the prince’s tryst in the woods was founded in a moment of cold reality to which I, Odin Dark, served as watchman in person. The stone of philosophy bequeathed unto him is a genuine magical artefact, and remains in his possession, even now.”

“Yeah, what he said,” Laslow concurred helpfully. “And I don’t know if you’d ever been in the throne room before it was refurbished?”

She shrugged. “Once or twice. I was paying more attention to Lady Camilla than the decor, though. I just remember it was really tacky.”

“Then you’ll not have glimpsed the golden tablet, bearing the visage of the silent dragon. The likeness was unmistakable.” Odin paused to quaff his tea, and poured himself another cup. “It hung ever above the throne, his eyes always on the head that wore the crown.”

“Until last month,” Laslow continued. “when Lord Leo smashed it.”

“ _Smashed_ it?” Selena raised an eyebrow.

“Right before he started work on the play. He said it fell from the ceiling on its own, but the only breaks in the stone were fresh. Sharp-edged. If it was coming loose, that would have happened more gradually. So… no, I’d say it was probably deliberate.”

“He was much perturbed by it, as I recall,” mused Odin. “And we had been gone from his side for scarcely a moment. Milord is not given to such blazing fits of wrath; one wonders what prompted it.”

Laslow had wondered about that as well, quite often. Especially during the writing of the play; the plotline about the king’s being possessed by the evil god had been Lord Leo’s idea. In all honesty, it would explain a good deal. Lord Xander didn’t speak much of his childhood, but whenever Laslow expressed a negative opinion of King Garon’s policies, he was always quick to stress that his father had not always been so corrupt, but that something in him had changed seemingly overnight. Lord Xander had always held onto the hope that one day the old king might recover, and return to being the man he once was, but now Laslow wasn’t so sure. None of the physicians they’d asked had been able to diagnose King Garon’s affliction; could it have been demonic possession? Was that a thing Mr. Anankos could do?

When their story was done, Selena’s eyes narrowed again, but in contemplation rather than suspicion. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she were about to speak, but hadn't yet found the words. Gods, but she was a vision.

“So, this crystal. Did it tell him about… the place as well, or just the guy running it?” she asked carefully. The question was met with a pair of identical shrugs.

“You did say he went to the Canyon after being given the crystal,” Laslow recalled.

Odin wolfed down the rasher of bacon sticking out of his mouth; he chewed it up gradually, the flitch shrinking smaller and smaller before disappearing into his mouth entirely. It was a little like watching Siegkat eat. Or Minerva. “Aye, and he did. But he spoke naught of the visions it imparted to him there, save for the corruption of the king.”

“It wasn’t mentioned in the play,” mused Selena. “But I guess even if he did know, he wouldn’t be able to talk about the place, so it wouldn't come up anyway.” She made a face. “This is all about as much use to us as if he didn’t know anything.”

“Well, I wouldn't say that.” Laslow reached across for the marmalade. “While the play was being performed, he had us all monitor the reactions of the audience the entire time. Said we were to report anyone who reacted in an unusual way to the scenes involving Mr. Anan -”

“ _Laslow!_ ” Selena cut him off sharply.

Odin frowned. “I don’t think the curse upon his lands applies to the name of our patron. During our first encounters, we spake his name aloud with impunity a good many times.”

“Still not a risk I’m willing to take,” said Selena. The sharpness of her words and tone belied the soft concern behind them, visible only in the shadow it cast over her lovely face.

“Well,” Laslow continued soothingly, “the point is, he was obviously trying to ferret out anyone else who might know something.”

“So… what? Do we come forward with what we know, or…?” Selena’s shoulders slumped, with an exasperated little growl of a sigh. “Why couldn’t he have given us a more defined set of rules to work with? In terms of what we can and can’t say, I mean.”

“I… think it’s okay to speak of the divine weapons openly,” Odin offered. “Lord Leo refers to his shadowgifted tome as such on occasion.”

“I’ve heard Siegfried called one, as well,” Laslow agreed. A little pang shot through him as he thought of the sword, still held fast in his true liege’s hands, down in the Hall of Remains. Apparently it was traditional in Nohr to bury the dead with a weapon, so that they’d be armed when they rose again for the last great battle at the world’s ending. Normally Siegfried would be passed to the next person in the royal family capable of wielding it, but both Lady Camilla and Lord Leo had refused to claim it; and so the blade had died with Lord Xander.

“Huh, Lady Camilla’s axe is just a regular axe,” said Selena, honestly sounding a tad affronted. Probably she saw this as yet another competition over whose liege was the best, and was afraid that this would be a point against her. “But she could totally use Siegfried _and_ Brynhildr if she wanted to.”

“I guess we can assume that glowing sword of Lady Kamui’s is one as well. So that leaves two.”

A thought seemed to have occurred to Odin, then. “Ah! With regards to Lady Kamui. As I recall, Lord Leo spent much of the play studying her reactions; and when the tale concluded, he went immediately to speak with her.”

“So it’s possible she knows something, _and_ has a divine weapon? That’d make our lives slightly easier.” Selena seemed a little mollified. “Heh, I knew we should’ve gotten another girl involved. We fix everything.”

“Of course, he might’ve had another motive for all that. It’s possible the crystal wasn’t the only part of that scene that was autobiographical,” Laslow grinned. Selena rapped his forehead lightly with the handle of her fork.

“Just because your priorities revolve around rogering doesn’t mean everyone else’s do too!” she snapped.

Laslow raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m joking, dearest. No, I think it’s pretty likely. She looked rather troubled when we went to eat.”

“Well, I hope so. It’s not like there’s any way we can ask her,” she sighed again.

“Well, we could always put on another play -”

This remark was met with another tap on the head.

“You might _try_ to take this more seriously. We’ve been here _eight years_ , Laslow.” The annoyance in her tone drained away in that last sentence, leaving a slight quaver in its wake. It almost sounded like a question; like any of the questions that queenly pride of hers forbade her from voicing aloud: _how much longer will we be here? Will we ever go home? Does “home” even remember us still? Do they worry about us?_

_Why would they care that we’re not there, when they have younger, unspoiled versions of us there to fill our shoes?_

“And we’ll not be here much longer than that,” he assured her. “His Grace is a smart guy, but if he needs a little nudge in the right direction, well… it’s just a matter of finding the right words, no?”

“Well, it better be the right words,” she said, her voice back to its usual primness. “The three of us came to this country together, and we’re leaving it together. Got it?”

Odin saluted, in a flourish that nearly tipped the tea-things over. “But of course! The weaving of words is my life’s work! - you know, aside from vanquishing evildoers and keeping my dark aura in check.”

Laslow raised his teacup in a mock toast. “As you say. We’ll go home together.”

 

* * *

 

Shigure still wasn’t sure how to feel about Nohrian food.

It wasn’t that it tasted _bad_ exactly, but the flavours were all very strong and difficult to get rid of; he’d still have the taste of jam in the back of his mouth when he drank his milk, which made the milk taste a bit like sick. The texture was strange too: the toasted bread and salted meat were hard and gritty, like eating something with sharp corners. But Aunt Kamui would be sad if he wasted food, so he ground at his breakfast with his back teeth like a pegasus, and tried to avoid touching any of it with his tongue too much.

He was beginning to wonder if Aunt Kamui didn’t like it either, though. She’d spent ages just poking at a piece of that salted meat - _flicce_ , he’d heard her call it - with her fork, without actually eating any. She kept looking towards the window and sighing.

“Something the matter?” asked Miss Mozu. Aunt Kamui jumped in her seat, and nearly dropped her fork.

“Ah! - no, I’m fine,” she mumbled, smiling in the way she always smiled when she was about to say sorry. “Sorry. I’m just, I’m just thinking.”

Aunt Kamui said sorry a lot. Shigure thought this was a bit strange; he didn’t think he’d ever seen her actually do anything wrong. Except for killing those bandits, but that was to rescue that girl…

There was a knock at the door.

“Lady Camilla,” announced Mr. Jakob, after getting up to answer it.

Miss Mozu stood up from the table quickly as Aunt Camilla came in. Father and Aunt Kamui had asked her and Mr. Jakob to sit down to breakfast with them, but Miss Mozu had gone very red, and Mr. Jakob had kept saying _oh no, I couldn’t possibly_ ; maybe retainers weren’t supposed to eat with their bosses. Shigure normally ate breakfast on his own with Father, so he hadn’t any way of knowing.

Aunt Kamui stood up as well, but she was grinning widely. “Camilla!”

“Good morning, dear,” Aunt Camilla breezed, kissing Aunt Kamui on the cheek. She really was a giant lady; Aunt Kamui was pretty tall (or so she’d always seemed to Shigure, anyway), but Aunt Camilla towered over her. She’d even looked to be bigger than Uncle Leo, the few times Shigure had seen him. “And to you, Lord Suzukaze. Sorry for dropping by _ungela∂odre_ , but I have something for the little one.”

“No, you are welcome here, Lady Camilla,” said Father, bowing. It was strange hearing him speak Nohrian; the words didn’t sound the same way they did when Shigure’s aunts or uncles spoke it, and it sometimes took him a while to work out what to say.

When she saw Shigure, her face split into a strange smile. It wasn’t a happy smile: the corners of her mouth had gone up, and there were dimples in her cheeks, but she was blinking very fast, as if she might cry. It was the same smile Shigure had seen on Aunt Sakura’s face sometimes. But Aunt Sakura was small - for a grown-up, at least - and frightened easily. Why would a big, strong lady like Aunt Camilla be frightened of anything?

“And good morning to you, too, Shigure,” she said, in Hoshidan.

“Good morning, Aunt Camilla,” he replied carefully, in Nohrian.

“You can just use Hoshidan when you’re talking to me, if it’s easier for you, darling. Anyway, I brought you a present.” She passed him a wooden box; its lid was painted with a pattern of swirling leaves and birds, surrounding the word _BLEÓCEALCAS_. “Think of it as a housewarming gift.”

He glanced at Father, who nodded at him to open it. Inside was a row of powdery sticks in a rainbow of different colours. They weren’t all the same length; a few of them looked like they had been worn down a little at the ends, and one of them had broken in half.

“This is very generous of you,” said Father; he sounded more like himself now. Aunt Camilla shook her head.

“Oh, think nothing of it. Kamui tells me he likes his drawing, and, well…” She stopped for a moment, and her neck stretched like she was swallowing. “They were just gathering dust, so I thought he might like them.”

“Camilla…” Aunt Kamui looked a little sad. Shigure wasn’t sure what was happening, but he did know that if someone gave you a present, you were supposed to say thank you.

“Thank you very much, Aunt Camilla,” he said, in Nohrian, with a bow.

She let out a quiet “oh!” and clapped her hands together. The smile on her face was a much happier one now; for a moment, Shigure was afraid she might try to grab him again (or worse, kiss him like she had Aunt Kamui). But she just returned his bow with a soft laugh.

“You’re very welcome, darling.” She gestured to the chair between him and Aunt Kamui. “Is it okay if I join you?”

Shigure wasn’t certain if it was okay or not. She _had_ just given him a present, but Aunt Camilla still frightened him a little: she was very big, and smelled like sour fruit, and her white dress and powdery face made her look like a ghost. But it would be rude to say that, and he didn’t want to upset anyone (especially not Aunt Kamui), so he nodded silently.

“By all means,” Father agreed, and she did. Mr. Jakob poured her some tea, and Miss Mozu laid out a clean plate in front of her. To Shigure’s relief, Father and Aunt Kamui soon got her caught up in one of those grown-up conversations he wasn’t expected to understand or join in with.

Shigure still had mixed feelings about most of his and Father’s new rooms, but the dining table was quite good fun. It was taller than the ones back home, so much so that when he sat at it, his legs dangled high off the floor, as if he was riding a horse. He and Aunt Kamui had played under it while they were waiting for Mr. Jakob to finish making the breakfast; the dark tablecloth transformed it into a hidden cave, and the two of them had pretended to be a family of wyverns in their lair.

“Not eating your toast?” she asked him now, startling him away from the memory.

Shigure grimaced, and began gumming another mouthful. The downside to eating it this way was that he had to keep it in his mouth longer, which made it go all gross and soggy. He very nearly spat it out in his surprise when he felt something tapping the back of his hand.

He swallowed it with a shudder, and turned to Aunt Camilla. She had cut her toast into thin rectangles, and was now reaching for one of the boiled eggs in their silvery cups.

“Have you tried eating it like this?” she asked in a sneaky whisper, like she was telling him a secret, as she knocked the top off the egg and began dipping the toast slices into it. She offered one to Shigure, who eyed it hesitantly; it looked pretty yuck, with the slimy yellow yolk all over the end of it, but Father was always telling him he should try his food properly before deciding he didn’t like it. He took a deep breath, and the very smallest of nibbles.

Honestly, it wasn’t bad. The egg yolk was soft and gooey, like the inside of a toasted mochi, and didn’t have as strong a flavour as butter or jam. Even the dreaded toast felt less sandpapery, and more like the senbei they used to eat the mochi on.

“Welp, looks like that’s been a hit with him,” chuckled Aunt Kamui, as Shigure reached for an egg of his own.

Aunt Camilla hummed a laugh too, from around a mouthful of the egg toast. She sounded happier than Shigure had ever heard anyone sound before, but it was a strange, shaky sort of happiness; as if it might suddenly turn into sadness at any moment. Still, he was too hungry to think about it much.

He nodded, and began trying to slice his toast into rectangles; Father reached across to help him. Father was _very_ good at cutting things. He did a little dance with his hand, the knife flashed, and the toast fell into perfect pieces too quickly to see how he’d done it.

“It’s not as good as rice, but it’ll stick to the ribs,” Shigure mumbled. He wasn’t really sure what “stick to the ribs” meant, but it was something he’d heard Miss Mozu say from time to time, and she always meant it as a good thing.

“Actually, your Uncle Leo’s been trying to come up with a way to grow rice here too,” said Aunt Kamui. She wasn’t looking at Shigure, though; her eyes had wandered to the window again. “It probably won’t be ready for a while, but he’s been doing some science experiments to invent a rice plant that can grow in Nohrian soil.”

“Ah, so _that’s_ what keeps him cooped up in his room all day.” Aunt Camilla rolled her eye with another laugh. “I was a little worried.”

Shigure blinked at her. That sounded like a strange thing to say. If she was worried about Uncle Leo, why didn’t she just go and check on him? Aunt Kamui looked a bit uncomfortable; maybe she was thinking the same thing.

“Yeah, that’s what it was,” she said, in that quiet, hurried voice grown-ups used when they wanted to sound like they were listening to you, but were actually thinking about something else. Just then, she mouthed a little “oh!”, like she’d had an idea.

“Something the matter, darling?”

Aunt Kamui had that smile on again; the one that meant she was about to say sorry. “Yes, I forgot. I actually promised I’d go speak to him about his research this morning; I don’t know how long it’ll end up taking. I’m really sorry, I know it’s a major cheek, but… would you mind covering Shigure’s Nohrian lesson for me this morning?”

Aunt Camilla put a hand over her heart, her fingertips brushing over her necklace with the picture of the girl’s face on it. “Oh, darling, I’d be _thrilled_ to! - that is, as long as Lord Suzukaze doesn’t mind the intrusion?”

Father glanced at Aunt Kamui for a moment, and nodded. “Not a bit of it. I’m not especially fluent myself, so I’d be glad of the assistance as well as the company. Is that all right with you, Shigure? I know it’s a sudden change, but…”

Shigure nodded, and swallowed his toast. “’S fine.”

“Ah, thank you! I’ve left his reading-book on the ottoman over there. I’m sorry again for the hassle. And for just running out on you like this. Sorry.” Aunt Kamui ducked her head in a little bow as she got up from the table.

“Make sure he’s eating,” Aunt Camilla called after her.

“I will. Be good for your aunt, now,” she said, stooping to kiss the top of Shigure’s head on her way out. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but for a second he could have sworn he saw her grinning to herself as she turned away.

 

* * *

 

It was Niles who answered the door; he opened it a crack and peered out, as if he was expecting whoever was on the other side to knife him if he gave them an inch. His eye widened when he saw Kamui, then narrowed into a grin.

“Ah, you’ve come at last. Kept him waiting long enough.”

“I’m sorry,” she cringed. “I was busy unpacking and saying my goodbyes all of yesterday, and -”

From somewhere beyond the doorway, she could hear Leo clearing his throat. “Who are you verbally assaulting now, Niles?”

“Lady Kamui’s here to see you,” he called over his shoulder, his grin widening. There was a symphony of skidding chair legs, rustling papers, and mutterings that were probably profane; when it reached its finale, Niles opened the door all the way, and waved Kamui inside.

“I’ll leave you to it. You kids have fun,” he whispered, sidling out past her. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

What an odd fellow.

Leo was standing to attention by his desk chair, hands clasped behind his back. His research notes  and paperwork were all gathered in one stack today, but not very neatly; it was as if he had just scraped them together in a hurry. She was both sorry and relieved to see that she’d disturbed his breakfast: his half-eaten croissant was being inspected by a tufty-eared blue cat perched on the arm of his chair.

“Kamui,” he said briskly, but also a little breathlessly. “Good morning.”

After a year in Hoshido, it was surreal to think of this as morning: the room was still pitch dark, lit only by Leo’s blue fire and a few of those floating candles. Kamui was profoundly grateful for the fire; she’d forgotten how chilly autumn in Nohr could get, and even in her dragon socks, with a thick sweater on under her pinafore, she was still feeling the cold somewhat.

“Morning, Leo. And who is _this_?” she squealed, darting over to pet the cat. It drew back from her hand with a hiss, its back arched like a drawn bow.

“Siegkat, that is no way to address a visitor,” said Leo, as imperiously as he could manage without raising his voice from the gentle tone he always used when addressing animals. Siegkat jumped down from the chair and hid under the table; a pair of lamplike yellow eyes regarding them crossly from the shadows, she seemed a far cry from the affectionate kitten Xander had described six years ago.

“Sorry, Siegkat,” Kamui cringed. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“She’s always iffy around strangers at first,” Leo assured her. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Ha, it’s fine. I’m sure we’ll be fast friends by the end of my stay; I mean, I managed to win over Taku -”

She cut herself off, cursing internally. Leo gave her a flat look.

“You’re allowed to talk about them, you know. It’s not blasphemy to take your siblings’ names in vain,” he said; then added, so very modestly, “well, except maybe mine, seeing as I’m the ordained avatar of the Dusk Dragon and all that.”

“Oh ha ha,” she drawled sarcastically, but it was still so bizarre to think about: she was speaking to the king of Nohr right now. He certainly didn’t look much like a king today. He’d traded in his armour for a knit sweater vest, and his boots for a worn pair of plaid slippers. His fringe, which had been so neatly combed down the past few days, now stuck up again in its usual cowlick.

This last observation was remarkable in itself. “Not wearing your crown today, O Divine Avatar?”

He shook his head. “No. The crown’s only worn during formal ceremonies and audiences.”

“But Fa - King Garon was always wearing it whenever I saw…” she trailed off, as she remembered the context for all the times she’d ever seen him. “Oh. But then Camilla always wears hers.”

“Camilla’s circlet is a good deal lighter than my crown,” Leo pointed out. He certainly was holding his head a little higher today.

“Well, you look more like yourself without it, anyway,” Kamui said; then winced, as she realised the implied insult. “Er, not that I’m saying you don’t look like a king - you do - just…”

“It’s fine. I know what you meant.” He was smiling now, but it was a wry smile. “Truth be told, I feel more like myself this way too.”

“Oh, Leo, I didn’t mean -”

He raised a hand, the smile brightening into his signature smirk. “Hush. I’ve already told you it’s fine. If you press the issue, you’ll just end up lodging your foot further back in your mouth than you did the first time.”

She laughed indignantly as she elbowed him neatly in the ribs. “Pig.”

“I’ll take it,” he said loftily. “Pigs are both intelligent and delicious.”

Once their laughter faded, Kamui’s mind wandered back to Camilla and Shigure, back in Kaze’s quarters.

“She came by this morning. Camilla, I mean.” A drip of candle-wax had fallen onto the surface of the table; Kamui absently began picking at it with her fingernail.

“You switched subjects very quickly there,” Leo remarked. “Don’t tell me you think she’s a pig too?”

“W-wait, that’s not how I meant that at all!”

“Oh, I’ll bet. No, I’m going to tell her you said that. Then _I’ll_ be her favourite.” he said, his grin widening wickedly as he struck a pose after the manner of the villain in the play.

“Gods, that came out so wrong,” she cringed. “I was just thinking about her crown again, and I remembered -”

“Yes, I inferred as much, don’t worry. How did she seem?” The spark of merriment was still dancing in the corners of his eyes; but with this query he blinked it away, and his expression fell into something more solemn.

Kamui paused. “A little happier than she was when we first arrived. Shigure was starting to warm up to her as well, I think. She should still be with him just now.” She contemplated telling him about Elise’s chalks, but decided against it; for all she knew, Camilla genuinely had only made a gift of them because she thought Shigure would like them, in which case there was no point in worrying Leo over it.

“Wonderful.” He exhaled a shaky sigh of relief at that. “Of course it’s not why I brought him over, but I had a feeling his presence might raise her spirits a little.”

“Well, long may that continue. I was so worried about her.” Again, Kamui realised too late what she’d said. Gods, this was the fourth time she’d tripped herself up. “Ah, but of course you’d be more worried, wouldn’t you? Seeing as how you live with her and all… I’m sorry, I -”

“Kamui,” Leo was staring at her, his expression pained. “It’s _me_. I understand.”

She returned his stare for a long moment. It was Leo, yes; but equally, it wasn’t. The man before her stood as tall and prim as the boy she had spent her childhood calling _brother_ , and had the same pointed chin and golden hair. But while that boy had always been pale, his skin had not been so sickly white as to be almost translucent; while he had always been thin, his cheeks had been fuller, his limbs less spindly; while he had always been melancholic, his eyes had never been as hollow as the ones that gazed pityingly upon her now.

Kamui sighed, and sat down on the edge of the desk. “Gods, what happened to us, Leo?”

“Should I start with the war, or go back to the part where my father abducted you after murdering your father before your eyes?”

They both laughed at that, but it was a weary laugh; it was still a little too soon for jokes like that to be tactful, but dark humour was a coping mechanism he resorted to sometimes. She’d asked him about it once, the summer they were fourteen, after he’d made an especially tasteless joke about his most recent mission: a mission that he very nearly hadn’t come back from. She had regretted asking as soon as he’d answered.

 _Sometimes laughter is the only way to keep from screaming_.

Kamui turned her attentions instead to the stack of notes on the desk beside her. One in particular had caught her eye: when she pulled it from the pile, it appeared to be some sort of floor plan. The page was headed with various titles, all but one of which had been scratched out: _~~Justice Cabal Training Facility~~. ~~Windmire Vocational College~~. ~~Academy of the Rising Phoenix~~. ~~Academy for the Economically Disadvantaged~~. ~~Windmire Charitable Institute for Education~~. ~~Glorified Orphanage~~._

She read the surviving one - presumably the current working title - aloud. “ _Annelise Academy_. This another of your projects?”

Leo nodded. “I’m not sure when I’ll have the funds for it, but one day, yes. Simply put, it’s a residential facility that provides peasant children with an alternative to eking out their living in the streets. It offers a curriculum of various vocational and academic subjects, so they’ll be able to pursue more stable trades than peddling when they graduate; which, in turn, would give them the means to pay back their tuition fees in instalments.”

“Like a cross between a boarding school and an apprenticeship scheme?”

“Precisely. Any child living below the poverty line would be eligible for enrolment, but…” Here he lifted his head to smile at her. “Priority would, of course, be given to war orphans.”

Kamui’s words came out as a joyful laugh. “So that’s what you were writing down while I was talking to you the other night! Leo, this is…”

He raised a halting hand, cutting her off before she had time to think of a fitting superlative. “Don’t sing my praises too much yet. As I say, it’s going to be a while before I can go ahead with it. There’s a lot of potential issues that need ironing out first, and it’ll probably end up costing a fair amount -”

“I’ll pay for it.”

He blinked at her. “Kamui, do you know how much it costs to establish a school?”

“That’s what these calculations here are about, right?” She pointed to the ones in the margin, adding up to a sum with rather a lot of zeroes on the end.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Leo sighed, “but taking that kind of money from the Hoshidan treasury is out of the question. People are still debating the propriety of accepting the supplies you donate to us already -”

She shook her head. “Nope, not what I meant. I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket.”

By the way Leo was staring at her, anyone would think she’d just told him she was going to fund an expedition to the surface of the moon.

“Kamui,” he asked, very slowly. “I know I’m probably putting myself at risk of cardiac arrest by asking this, but: how much is your personal income?”

She told him.

“Gods be good.” He shook his head. “That’s the Hoshidan economy for you, I suppose.”

“Exactly. I don’t even know what I’d spend that kind of money on. This past year, I’ve mostly been putting it towards the rebuilding effort anyway. And…” She turned her gaze back to the sketch in front of her, imagining it as a real, solid building, with a roof that kept out the rain, and walls that kept out the cold, and a door that kept out men with axes. “It’s the least I can do for them.”

Leo was staring at her again, but his expression was a peculiar one; like some odd cross between disbelief and melancholy. Kamui supposed it must be pity, and felt a little indignant.

“Well, then. We’ll chase up some other patrons too, of course.” he said quietly, turning away from her to shuffle the papers on his desk. 

“Annelise Academy.” As she passed the papers back to him, she repeated the name to herself, past the lump it had formed in her throat.

“Think she’d approve of the name?”

“Oh, very much.” The backs of her eyes were stinging again; for once, though, her dragonstone lay completely silent as she blinked the tears back.

“We’ll start making a more serious plan for it over the next month or so. But…” Here he lifted his head again, his gaze questioning. “In the meantime, I have a more pressing matter to discuss with you; which I’m guessing is also the reason you’re here?”

“Well, I came to discuss that scene in the play, anyway. The one with Azura’s crystal.” Impulsively, she clasped his hand between both of hers. “Because that’s what it was about, wasn’t it? The stone that told the prince his father was possessed?”

Leo swallowed hard, and nodded mutely.

“And… is that really what it told you?”

“Okay, before I tell you anything, I have to preface this with a warning.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, first I have to preface that warning with a request that you not judge me for my hand in writing the play.”

“But it was really good,” said Kamui. Leo made an indelicate little sound, and shook his head.

“When this is over, I’ll take you to see a _real_ play,” he promised, patting her hands pityingly with his free one. “Anyway, I’m going on a tangent. As I say, there’s a reason I had to relay the crystal’s message to you in the form of allegorical fiction. The things I’m about to tell you are guarded by a curse, where…”

He paused a moment, then gently withdrew his hand. “Actually, hold on. I don’t know if it’ll work for you, but it’s probably simpler if I just show you.”

 

* * *

 

The crystal didn’t shatter this time; Kamui passed it back to Leo before the vision was done. Rather, she thrust it back at him.

“I’ve seen enough.”

“How much _did_ you see?” he asked; for her sake, he tried to keep his voice from shaking, but it was a losing battle. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the fate of the world may depend upon her answer.

“Enough to know what will happen if we discuss it openly.” Kamui had always been deeply moved by pity - it was, at once, her most admirable quality and her most fatal flaw - but her expression here was not one of simple empathy; she looked utterly stricken, haunted by some memory she had kept buried, which the crystal’s vision had brought to light again.

Leo forced himself to recall the aftermath of the invasion: the rows of bodies on the floor, which he’d been forced to examine meticulously, as the only commanding officer left on his feet to recognise them. The people he’d found, but been unable to identify. The people he hadn’t found, but had known for a fact were dead.

Even at the time, it had seemed odd to him that she hadn’t left behind a body; but he’d stepped over the corpses of his siblings to reach the throne room, and had been too deep in his own grief to think much on it. But this, he supposed, would explain it.

“Azura died in the same way, didn’t she?”

Kamui nodded mutely. Her eyes were downcast, shielded by her lashes; but the end of her nose was beginning to colour, her lips pressed together in a thin, trembling line. Guilt pierced Leo, at having made her relive the memory without so much as warning her. He ached to take her in his arms, to let her weep openly into his shoulder until the last tears she had in her were soothed away. But instead he stood in frigid silence, his hands and eyes fixed prudently on the crystal, keeping to a respectful distance as she pulled herself together unaided. Apart from anything else, it was nothing short of arrogant to suppose that nobody else had ever thought to comfort her in such a way already: she had a whole army of friends to confide in - friends who loved her in the way she deserved, and were not so perverse and twisted as himself.

“But wait,” she said finally. When she looked up at him, her tone and gaze were both questioning, but as clear and steady as dragonstone. “You said Fa - King Garon - was possessed.”

“I did, and he was,” Leo nodded, relieved to be back on the topic at hand. “There’s a second part to the vision, which I can’t show you here: the crystal always shatters at the moment Arete disappears entirely. Apparently even inanimate objects, depicting a vision or transcription of someone else talking about… all this, are subject to the curse. As far as I know, there’s only one place where one may speak of these matters openly.”

Kamui tilted her head to one side. “Wait, you mean…?”

He nodded. “This may take a while. Are you up for an expedition?”

She grinned. “Always.”

“Good. Niles,” he called.

“Yes, milord?” Niles reappeared in the doorway remarkably quickly; presumably he’d been listening at the keyhole. It was difficult to fault him for that: if Leo had been anyone else, talking to anyone else, it might be seen as typical for the workings of Niles’s filthy mind; but here was a king’s retainer, leaving his liege lord alone with the princess of what had, until recently, been an enemy kingdom. A princess who always kept her sword on her, at that. If anything, his giving them privacy would have been greater cause for alarm.

“Have horses saddled for Lady Kamui and myself. We have a quick errand to run.”

Niles nodded, and made his exit. Leo’s attentions were swiftly turned back to Kamui, as she nudged him in the ribs.

“Hey.”

“Hm?”

She still sat on his desk, her fingertips brushing the plan for the academy: the first inarguably positive act of his reign, which could be brought about sooner rather than late, thanks to her generosity. The blue candlelight had shaded her eyes to a soft violet, the braids of her hair to an ethereal silver. She seemed almost to glow with a soft light herself; much as Leo couldn't bring himself to tear his gaze away, looking directly at her stung like staring into one of the candle-flames.

It was difficult to say whether the wicked smile scrawled across her face diminished or intensified its radiance. “I’d change your shoes before you forget. I mean, unless going out in your slippers is the fashion right now.”

Oh, it definitely diminished it.

“As it happens, it is,” he lied loftily. “It’s all the rage in Cyrkensia, I’ll have you know.”

She cackled at that. “Oh my. Are you sure it’s a good idea to be wearing haute couture on a cross-country ride?”

“Well, we _could_ have warped there, but I recently lent my warp book to a very cruel lady of my acquaintance, who brought it back in tatters.”

“Hey, I have it on very good authority that she said she was sorry.” Kamui’s laugh was joyous. The mere sound of it, in that moment, was enough to lift a great weight from Leo: however else the visions preserved in the crystal’s core had altered the course of his life, they could also, indirectly, be credited with bringing Kamui back into it, even if only for a few months.

But, of course, to know how that cheered him would only bring her greater sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but first of all WHAT??? 34 KUDOS???? 950 HITS????? WHAT HAS THIS DUMB FIC EVER DONE TO DESERVE SUCH A POSITIVE RECEPTION, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH ;.;  
> This chapter's a bit of an experiment; so far, doing it this way seems to be making it a bit easier for me to keep track of multiple character arcs, as well as the overall chronology of the story, than it is to alternate between entire chapters from different POVs (and also it means I can shamelessly shoehorn leokamu content into every chapter-- *shot*), but if you prefer whole chapters from one POV, let me know.  
> Anyway, NOTESES
> 
> \- I had gone into this intending to keep the references to the Awakening trio’s parentage vague, but then everyone and their grandma picked up on the raven thing in chapter 4, and… eh, henlivia’s a popular enough ship (not to mention the best one, heheh), so I figure I may as well be open about it. I’ve avoided any references to Sev and Owain’s fathers, but if you’re curious about who I imagine them to be, I usually pair Lissa with either Ricken or Gaius, and Cordelia/Stahl was one of my Awakening OTPs, haha.
> 
> \- “Flicce" is actually just Nohrian for bacon. Well, actually it’s Anglo-Saxon and Germanic for bacon; I use a bastardised combination of the two as a stand-in for Nohrian, similarly to how Japanese is used to represent Hoshidan. Since Shigure isn’t familiar with the language, the words of Nohrian he knows are rendered here in English, and the ones he doesn’t are rendered in “Nohrian”. My use of this device in scenes from his POV will lessen as he becomes more fluent.
> 
> \- Using the character models and the manga as a source, Kamui is indeed pretty tall. Her character model is about half a head shorter than Leo’s, who is himself only half a head shorter than ol’ Colossal Titan Xander. BUT. In the manga, Camilla is taller than Leo, and only very slightly shorter than Xander. There’s one scene where Camilla is wearing lower heels than Xander’s, and is still only a couple inches shorter than him, and. I LIVE for that okay. Camilla is the tall, powerful Amazonian queen of my dreams, she can and regularly does lift Hinoka like a ballerina and spin her in a circle, you can’t change my mind.
> 
> \- Kamui openly squees whenever she sees a cat. That's not my headcanon, that is fact.
> 
> \- Leo does not squee when he sees a cat; instead, he will quietly go over and pet the cat. He's the Celica to Kamui's Alm.
> 
> \- When they are married, they adopt All The Cats. Again, none of this is my headcanon, it's an actual piece of nonfictional historical trivia as detailed in "An Onerously Protracted History of Nohr" (volume 37, chapter 20). I am sharing this information with you because it is very important and educational.
> 
> \- You have no idea how hard I had to fight not to have Leo say “That’s Birthright’s easy goldfarming for you”. You cannot BEGIN to imagine.
> 
> \- Joking aside, living in a more prosperous country is only part of the reason for Kamui’s increase in personal income. It’s also partly the simple fact that Hoshido, as a country, generally seems to operate on a more rigid class system than Nohr, wherein it’s harder to get ahead and make a name for yourself if you’re not born into a wealthy family (seriously, Azama is literally the only named Hoshidan character in the game who wasn’t born into a royal or noble family). Of course a society like that would pay more of its capital directly into the pockets of the ruling class; I know this because that’s what happens here whenever we have a Tory government! *BA-DUM-TSS*


	8. Caverns of Chalk and Clay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kamui and Leo's quick errand isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: references to alcoholism.  
> This is another long chapter, I’m afraid.

 

 

 

 

> _“28/11/1319_
> 
> _As with yesterday, most of today was passed in bidding my adieux to the guests. Nobody has passed comment on the frugality of the festivities - the celebration of King Ryouma’s coronation was similarly brief - but it is humiliating nonetheless, in light of how lavishly my forebears were inaugurated: Mother used to tell of how Father’s coronation feast lasted fully seven nights (although this may have been an exaggeration on her part, to secure my compliance in her designs on the throne by way of appealing to my ego; I thank the gods she did not live to see me now)._
> 
> _The Hoshidan royals were the last to depart, staying until after supper. My nephew wept openly and bitterly at their parting. Although my holding him here is for his own safety, it greatly aggrieves me to do so: the sight of this child struggling against the web of realpolitik in which he finds himself ensnared is an uncomfortably familiar one. Unfortunately, there is no way around it - even when the wyrm is vanquished, what evidence do I have of Azura’s true parentage, that will not be dismissed as a fabrication on my part to strengthen my own claim to the throne? Moreover, even if I were to do so, the conflict that would arise over the issue of succession would only throw the court into further chaos: Camilla is still unmarried and childless at present, and I mean to remain likewise forever (I am sensible of the advantages of a political union, but to wed another, while Kamui yet lives, would be like lighting a candle and declaring it a sufficient replacement for the moon). Alas, all I may do for the boy now is allow him to visit his homeland as frequently as our work allows, which is unlikely to be often._
> 
> _Despite the sentiments she expressed after watching the play, Kamui still has not spoken with me on the matter, and the opportunity for another tête-à-tête has never presented itself. Intellectually, I know that there probably wasn’t any darker meaning to that than a simple desire to see as much of her family as she could before they are parted, but still I spent the past two days tormented by the prospect that further contemplation led her to understand the other allegory in the play, and to see me for the degenerate that I am. The thought alone is not to be borne: seeing her again these past four nights - the gentleness of her smiles, the keenness of her humour, the knightly grace of her battle-forged frame, ethereally draped in flowing silks like some mythical elf-queen - and knowing that she is willing to remain a part of my life, has been the rock I’ve clung to throughout these dark days, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to see myself torn from that rock by a current of my own moral frailties._
> 
> _But let me not think on it. While I lie agonising over unrequited, unforgivable attachment, the wyrm lies conspiring over the advancement of his murderous designs. We carry the fate of the world here; if she does not raise the subject tomorrow, I shall approach her myself._
> 
> _30/11/1319_
> 
> _Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT”_
> 
> \- A page from King Leo’s personal diary. He kept a series of journals all his life, writing in them every night regardless of whether or not he intended to sleep. As he grew older, his overall writing style became more prosaic, save for any mention of Lady Kamui, wherein he held to the florid descriptions of the sort shown here.
> 
> Owing to the nightly schedule of the entries, he never elaborates on what prompted the string of “idiots” forming the entry for the 30th of November (which continues in block capitals for another page), but other accounts mention that he rode out to the Bottomless Canyon with the princess the previous day, and did not return until the following morning; as such, in light of the events that unfolded in the following months, it’s easy enough to infer from context.

 

Little Shigure was the quietest child she’d ever met; and this was coming from the woman who had raised Leo.

It really was a joy to watch him, though: he was kneeling, rather than sitting, on his chair, his entire body bent over the paper and his left arm shielding it from any prying eyes trying to sneak a glimpse of his work before it was done. His brow was furrowed in precisely the same way Kamui’s had used to when she was that age, whenever she was focussing hard on something. He held the chalk rather oddly, though: he was gripping it as tightly as he could, but it still slid about in his little hand as he swiped it over the paper. Most children Camilla had met would have been frustrated by this; but Shigure remained sanguine, seeming to regard it as an unfortunate fact of life, and persevered, determined and obviously enjoying himself.

Beside him, Lord Suzukaze sipped his tea. He held the cup after the Hoshidan fashion, disregarding the handle and gripping the sides between his fingers. It might not be in accordance with Nohrian etiquette, but there was an air of modest refinement to the gesture. Camilla found herself wondering if the Hoshidan princesses took their tea in the same way; and if Azura had, as well.

“Has he always been an artist?” she asked instead; half out of genuine interest, and half out of a feeling that she ought to fill the silence with something.

Lord Suzukaze nodded. “He’s had a fascination with it since before he could talk. His wet-nurse would send us letters every couple of weeks, and they’d always have at least two or three pages of inky handprints attached.”

Camilla laughed. “That’s how all the old masters started out, I hear.”

Finally, Shigure set the chalk down and sat back from his drawing, regarding it with a critical eye. He nodded to himself, apparently satisfied, and slid it along to his father.

“It’s very good,” Lord Suzukaze said. “Talk me through it.”

Shigure bent over the drawing again, stabbing at it with his finger. “This is the dragon. And this is me on his back. And this bit here is the mountain, and this is his cave. And he’s taking me to his cave to show me all his treasure.”

“I see it now.” Lord Suzukaze nodded sagely, with a completely straight face. “Your technique is improving, I think. Do you want to show your aunt?”

Shigure passed the paper across the table to her. She almost faltered when she looked at it: to the untrained eye, it would seem little more than a blur of blue and purple squiggles, but Camilla was something of an expert in the field of small children’s art, and if not for the words “時雨、４さい” scrawled in one corner, this piece could easily have passed for an Annelise Krakenburg original. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, and tried to tell herself that it was only the use of the same materials that made it look that way.

“Why, it’s an excellent likeness,” she remarked brightly, instead. Focussing on the subject matter made it rather easier: Elise’s early drawings had mostly been of flowers, or small animals, or her family. “You obviously know a good deal about the anatomy of dragons.”

“Oh, he loves his dragons,” Lord Suzukaze nodded. “We’re not sure when that started, but he reads about them constantly.”

“I shall have to introduce you to my dear Marzia some time,” said Camilla. “She’s very friendly. I’m sure you’d get along marvellously.”

“Aunt Kamui turns into a dragon sometimes,” Shigure remarked idly, as he reached for a biscuit. Camilla felt her smile return at that comment, and the mental image it gave her: Kamui had always been fond of pretending-games as a child, and the memory of her and Leo playing at being the dark dragon and the Hero-King was one of few that the war had left untainted.

Lord Suzukaze looked a little uncomfortable upon hearing that, though.

“She’s been gone a while, hasn’t she?” Camilla observed, voicing what she assumed was his concern.

“It must be a distant errand,” he said diplomatically.

In truth, Camilla was starting to fret a little herself. She had sat down with Shigure to tackle his lessons at half past nine in the morning; by the time they stopped for lunch, Kamui still hadn't returned, and when Jakob had brought them their afternoon tea, he had explained that (according to Niles, at least) she and Leo had set out on some message pertaining to one of their projects, and nobody knew where they’d gone. She’d ordered him to go out and look for them if they weren’t back by suppertime, an instruction he’d accepted with a measure of gratitude that was a little jarring coming from him. Intellectually, Camilla knew that her siblings were capable of taking care of themselves; but they had gone out completely unguarded, and the people didn’t hold the rosiest view of Kamui these days.

And Elise had seemed capable too, the last time Camilla had seen her.

Well, there was a thought to be rid of quickly. She retrieved one of the vials she kept in her bodice, under the guise of having dropped something under the table, and surreptitiously decanted its contents into her cup. It was a mercy that she preferred her tea black: to Camilla’s mind, milk and wine made a ghastly combination.

Once she’d taken her medicine, she began to feel a little more like herself. Shigure had flourished the chalk again, and was starting on another drawing; this time, Camilla thought that perhaps she might have a try too. She was a bit rusty, but she’d enjoyed sketching well enough back in the day, and as she lightly traced the lines of her nephew’s profile, she gradually felt the knack for it coming back to her.

When she looked up at him again for reference, he was staring at her as if she’d sprouted a second head.

“Something the matter, dear?”

“You’re using the wrong hand,” he said. Neither his expression nor his tone were judgemental; only very perplexed.

Camilla laughed. “Oh, no, I always use my left hand to draw. I find it easier than using my right.”

“Huh. When I use mine, people always tell me not to.”

“Being left-handed makes it harder to write most kanji,” Lord Suzukaze elaborated. “and most of the etiquette regarding weaponry in Hoshido operates on the assumption that the wielder is right-handed. So most people are trained from an early age to use their right hand instead.”

“Are you left-handed as well, Lord Suzukaze?”

“Ah, just Kaze is fine; and no,” he said mildly. His gaze grew a little more sombre, then. “His mother was, though.”

“Did she draw as well?” asked Camilla, before she could stop herself.

But he seemed composed enough when he answered. “A little, yes; although she preferred music. I think Lady Mikoto kept a few of her paintings.”

Camilla smudged a touch of shade into the corner of Shigure’s jawline. “Does he look very much like she did at that age?”

“You’d know better than I, I’d imagine.”

She shook her head. “No, I was discouraged from speaking to her when we were children. I only ever saw her from the opposite end of a room.”

He looked pained. “Lady Camilla…”

“Just Camilla is fine,” she said, echoing his earlier tone. “Forgive my nosiness, Kaze; I’m enormously curious about my poor sister, but I know it’s not something I should be harassing widowers over.”

He actually smiled at that, a subtle line of a smile; and his gaze had wandered far away. The ever-present melancholy in his eyes remained, but there was a warmth to it now: it spoke of an old love, one forged in the fires of youth - perhaps even in childhood - that endured to this day; one which the sorrow of having lost was more than solaced by the joy of having had at all. “No, no, you ask away. She’s always been my favourite topic of conversation.”

“Then we have much to discuss,” said Camilla, as she sipped away the dregs of her cup, and moved to pour herself another. This time she spiced it with the crowberry extract Jakob had left out with the milk and sugar on the tea-tray; it didn’t have as much of a kick to it as her usual blend, but perhaps she could acquire a taste for it.

She glanced out the window, and sighed. At three o’clock in the afternoon, the sun had long since set, and the gloaming skies outside were lit only by a thin sickle moon. The night frosts would be setting in soon; whatever her siblings’ errand was, she only hoped Leo had remembered to wear a hood for once.

 

* * *

 

Leo sneezed, and drew his coat a little tighter across his shoulders.

“Bless you,” said Kamui lightly, without looking round.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, sniffling. He had lost count of how many times they’d had this exchange over the course of their ride. They had set out in the late morning, just before sunrise, and there had been a chill in the air and a carpet of frost underfoot already; now, it was like breathing needles. It was only Kamui’s enthusiasm for each new sight they passed on the road that bore him through it. This would be her first glimpse of the Nohrian countryside in (relative) peacetime, and every thorny, leafless tree that bowed to them in the wind, every thin slate of ice floating down the river Merewif where they forded it, every _Nevermore_ from every raven, seemed to her strange and exciting enough to exclaim over, just as she had exclaimed over the illustrations in their books when she was a girl. Leo may have travelled this road more often, but Kamui noticed so much that he had always overlooked, that it almost felt as though she was the one guiding him along it.

Even so, he kept vigilant. These roads could be treacherous enough when followed uninterrupted, and the risk of interruption was ever-present. He and Kamui could take a band of roving Faceless or highwaymen easily enough, but dire-wolves and wyverns would be a little harder to fend off.

“If it’s that likely to be a problem, shouldn’t we have changed into our armour before we set out?” Kamui pointed out, the third time she’d looked back to see Leo dubiously eyeing the black crags they had been skirting.

“Excellent suggestion,” Leo riposted cheerily. “All except for the part where we’d turn into walking lightning-rods as soon as we reached the canyon.”

Kamui bristled a bit. “I see your point, but you don’t have to be snide about it.”

“Yes I do, actually,” he remarked sweetly. “I’ve never told you this, Kamui, but when I was in my cradle, a witch put a curse on me that will kill me instantly if I ever say anything that isn’t a sarcastic comment.”

“Huh. Suddenly everything about our childhood makes sense.”

“Anyway, the politer answer to your question is that wearing plate armour at the Bottomless Canyon is more of a hazard than it’s worth,” he reiterated, in a gentler tone.

“So why didn’t we just borrow a couple of leather cuirasses from the armoury?” she asked.

“ _Damn it_.”

Oh, the mirth she drew from his blunders. She really was a charmless girl, he mused fondly.

That they had set out unguarded had also been out of necessity. For whatever reason (and Leo had wondered about this at some length), Niles and Laslow hadn’t been able to work the crystal, and would require a verbal explanation; and as much as Leo liked and trusted Odin, he wasn’t sure a full day’s ride was the best setting to introduce him to a new person in. He would wheedle Nyx out of a warp book later, he’d decided, and bring Odin to Valla then. Three heads were better than two, after all.

They were nearing the canyon now, in any case. If this had been a scene in _The Dark Lord’s Gambit_ , their arrival would have been heralded by an impeccably-timed thunderclap. Sadly, the skies cared less for dramatic flair in real life, and all they got was a downpour of rain on their heads. This time, Leo had had the forethought to wear a hood, but it hadn’t proven to be much use. His coat was lined with dire-wolf fur, so he had still ended up with a face full of wet hair, except this time it smelled like damp dogs. He wasn’t quite as soaked as Kamui, though: she had stuck to her old cloak, collared rather than hooded, and one of those knit caps Camilla had made her. Being wool, these and her pinafore mostly shielded her upper body from the water; but she’d hiked her skirt up to keep it out of her way while riding, and the ruffled pantaloons she had on underneath were dripping and plastered to her. Just looking at her was enough to make him feel cold.

“Seriously, how are you not freezing?” asked Leo, yelling to make himself heard over the hammering of the rain. Kamui only laughed.

“It’s refreshing,” she said brightly. Leo wasn’t sure he’d have used that word to describe this weather, but it could certainly be applied to the sight of her in this moment. The cold air and exercise had flushed her cheeks, and set her eyes alight; her hair, made heavy by the rainwater, had darkened from its usual white-blonde to the pale yellow of the moonflower.

Leo hadn’t even noticed the smile sidling its way over his face; he nearly fell off his horse when she returned it with a quizzical one of her own, spilling beads of water from her fringe as she tilted her head to the side.

“You seem in good spirits too,” she observed, a little ruefully. “Is it going to be that much of a relief to get all this off your chest?”

“Yes!” said Leo, seizing the excuse gratefully. “Er. Yes, it is.”

Gods knew it was technically true, anyway.

She half-jumped, half-fell from the saddle; as she landed, she did a funny sort of step dance with her knees splayed out. “Ha, I’m all stiff now.”

“Hardly surprising. We’ve been riding for the better part of the day.” Leo’s own dismount was rather more graceful, if he said so himself: he wasn’t as coordinated in most settings as he’d have liked to be, but Nohrian nobles practically spent their lives on horseback.

They stashed their horses in the same fort Leo had used the last time he was here. This time, though, they stopped to rest for a moment themselves, at Kamui’s insistence; rather, at the insistence of her stomach, which was quite vocal about its stance on the matter. They dined on a kingly supper of waybread and the basic concept of mushrooms (Leo wasn’t as confident about growing fungi as he was with certain plants; but Kamui, philistine that she was, had a horror of uncooked tomatoes, and the rotting wood of the floorboards made a rather perfect mushroom log), while the conjured fire made an optimistic effort to dry them off a little.

“So,” Kamui began. “Is it enough that we’re at the canyon, or…?”

Leo waved a hand in front of his mouth, to indicate that he was still chewing, and swallowed. “No. We’re going to have to, er. Jump.”

“Oh,” said Kamui, then, “ _oh_. Are you… going to be okay?”

“I’ll manage,” he shrugged. She had learned about his acrophobia quite early on in their childhood (and learned that it wasn’t an appropriate basis for pranks very shortly after); but neither he nor Camilla had ever told her exactly how severe it was, and he’d be damned if he was going to now. “It’s what I did the last time, after all.”

“Leo…” The concern etched into her face pierced his heart from two separate angles: a rush of affection, and a twist of regret at having troubled her over so small a thing. It _was_ a small thing, he told himself sternly.

“Kamui, it’s fine. Genuinely,” he said, but the words came out a little too clipped.

Kamui looked unconvinced, but stumbled to her feet anyway. The motion was a little like watching a fawn take its first steps: she had always been fairly coltish, and an hour sitting on a cold, damp floor in wet pantaloons hadn’t done her any favours. “Guess we’d better start making tracks, then.”

She made her way over to give the horses a last clap goodbye while he doused the fire. Her grey jennet, Éowyn (gods only knew why she’d chosen _that_ name for a horse), was tall for her breed, but looked comically tiny next to Nosferatu. Leo would have taken a palfrey himself, but his charger was like a jealous husband, and would pointedly refuse to look at him for days afterward if he ever dared ride another horse. To be honest, this was probably a good thing: it was unlikely anyone else would find their way here without a purpose, but if they did, they’d probably want a means of getting away again quickly. Nosferatu was too large and aggressive to steal, and even if someone managed to take Éowyn, he would be sturdy enough for Kamui to ride pillion with Leo (a mental image he banished from the fore of his mind, but filed away for future use, possibly as a doodle in the margin of his diary).

“There, now, that’s my clever girl. You be good while we’re gone,” Kamui soothed, running a hand down the side of her horse’s neck. She turned to Nosferatu, and saluted. “Guard her well, Sir Knight.”

Leo rolled his eyes, but the destrier gave a whinny in response that almost sounded smug.

“Don’t feed his ego,” Leo chided. Kamui gave a graceless, snorting laugh that would have been decidedly out-of-place in the sort of chivalric romance she had referenced.

Gods above, she was wonderful.

Once they’d made absolutely certain they hadn’t forgotten anything, they headed out to the canyon’s brink. Rather, they waded out. The last time Leo had been here was the summer of the previous year, and it had been a wet, marshy place then; but now, in the twilight of the autumn, they were almost knee-deep in mud. Leo thanked the gods he hadn’t worn his armour: lifting his feet was enough of a chore already.

“Gods, was it as bad as this the last time you were here?” he asked, the question having occurred to him just as he was saying it. He’d had Nosferatu that day, of course, but she had taken the entire hike on foot.

“Weather-wise, yes.” Her eyes narrowed roguishly then. “We don’t have Hans tagging along this time, though.”

He laughed quietly through his nose; the wailing of the winds swallowed it up. “Well, this is true. Count our blessings.”

The fog surrounding the chasm had also thickened, much as Leo wouldn’t have thought that possible. It was almost an opaque cloud now, only parting occasionally, and in such a way as to look unsettlingly as if something on its opposite side was moving towards them.

Kamui was eyeing the mist dubiously, as she tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Leo, was that story about feral wyverns just you being flippant about the wyrm, or…?”

“Kamui, it’s Nohr,” he said flatly. “There’s feral wyverns everywhere.”

He took out Brynhildr, bending over it at an awkward angle to shield its pages from the rain, and thumbed through it until he found the appropriate passage. This time, he would need to read through it first: while he knew the theory, he had never levitated more than one person at a time before. The maths would be simple enough, though: based on the differences in height and thew, Kamui’s mass was probably roughly equal to his, which he’d long since memorised, and the value for gravity stayed the same regardless.

Even so, the drop awaiting them below was hardly a reassuring prospect, if he _had_ miscalculated.

He closed his eyes, shaking away the image of a lace-gloved hand reaching for his throat, and tried to swallow down the bile rising in the back of his mouth. As he forced his breath steady, he fell back on his childhood coping mechanism of cycling through the prime numbers: two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen…

The pattern was broken, startling him back to reality, as Kamui gripped and squeezed his free hand. His surprise - or perhaps the underlying fear - must have shown in his face; she was smiling at him, but it was a troubled smile.

“You said you’ve done this before, right?” It was phrased as a request for reassurance, but spoken as an offer of it. Leo accepted it with a jerky nod.

“Well, then…” She sucked in a deep breath, and led him by the hand, forward and over the canyon’s edge.

Her bravado fell away with the initial drop; when Leo got his bearings again after casting the spell, the first thing he registered was her free hand clamped around his arm, almost tightly enough to be painful.

“Hey, it’s fine,” he said, in a voice that was itself too ragged with panic to be properly reassuring. “Just… just make sure you’re holding onto me until we reach the bottom.”

The motive behind the instruction was not purely selfish: so long as they were touching, the spell treated them as a single object, with a weight calculated from their combined mass, and they would both keep falling downwards at a stable speed. If she let go, though, she would hit the canyon floor in a bloody heap, while he would surge up at a rate that would push his skull down until his neck snapped under the pressure.

She recovered quickly; but then, Kamui never had been the type to frighten easily, especially not when the alternative to fear was curiosity.

“How did you do that?” she asked excitedly, and chuckled as the sound echoed around them.

“Oh, it’s simple enough. I just applied a magnetic force to the water in our bodies, that propels us upward at almost the same rate gravity propels us downward.” As he’d expected, his calculations had been slightly off, and they were falling at a faster rate than he’d meant them to, but it was more like they were sinking through deep water; still a gentle descent, but rather more exhilarating than his first.

Then again, that could just be the effect of Kamui’s presence. All the while, she turned her head this way and that, gazing with rose-tinted wonderment at the canyon walls around them, and the ever-shrinking streak of sky far above. Leo quickly found himself assaulted by a cannonade of questions: how difficult was the spell to cast? Could it be used on other things? How might one go about doing that? It was difficult to tell whether she asked out of genuine interest, or whether this was a distraction intended to soothe Leo’s own anxieties. If it was the latter, it was working; as he kept his mind on her questions, his gaze on her inquisitive half-frown, and his hands laced neatly around hers, he soon found his attentions engaged in the happier battle of resisting the urge to kiss her.

Until one of her braids floated forward and hit him in the eye, anyway.

 

* * *

 

The country they’d landed in was certainly nothing like anyplace Kamui had ever seen; and yet, she found herself seized with an unshakable sense of déjà vu.

Not over the landscape itself - she didn't think she’d even heard of anything like that in some of the stranger novels she’d read; the ones with flying boats and sea monsters, that called themselves “science fiction” despite Leo’s haughty insistence that there was nothing scientifically-feasible in any of them. No, it was a handful of smaller details that gave her pause: the almost electrically-charged feel of the grass underfoot; the patterns tiled or carved into the oddments of ruined wall dotted about; the smell of water drifting through the air.

“So this is… Valla?” she tried, through gritted teeth.

“The curse doesn’t have any effect while you’re actually in Valla, I’m told. And yes,” Leo nodded. His words were meant to be reassuring, yet he looked anything but reassured himself: his eyes were narrowed slightly, in the same way they had been on the road, whenever he’d scanned the peaks for wyverns; and Brynhildr stayed open in his hand.

“Looks like it’s definitely seen better days…” Kamui mused quietly, as she made her way over to examine the nearest ruin. The gouges in the stone were unmistakable; it was the mark her own claws had dug into the ground, as she pinned Azura down in a blaze of rage and confusion. “Was this… all the dragon?”

“Yes. My own understanding of what happened is limited, but if you have any questions, I can refer you to an associate of mine and Azura’s, who lived here for some years.”

Kamui dropped the fragment of greyish-blue roof-tile she was holding; it nearly landed on her foot. “Azura’s _been_ here?”

“You saw the vision. These were her lands, by rights,” he pointed out. “Anyway, if you could lower your voice until I find us some form of cover…”

Leo cast about for a moment; finding nothing to his liking, he shrugged, and passed his free hand over Brynhildr, letting the spell form as a star of violet light cupped in his palm. Moving his hand in a kind of twisting motion, he carved out a crater in the earth around them. Once the circle’s edge had formed a defined enough ridge, he raised his hand and pulled it up into a domed wall over them.

It was utterly black in this makeshift cave, but Kamui could hear Leo giving the wall a smart rap with his knuckles, and studying the sound of the knock with a critical _mhmm_. This was followed by the sound of shuffling paper, and all at once the place was lit up by another spell. This time, a glowing plant sprouted up by Kamui’s feet; it looked a little like a ground cherry, if ground cherries were the size of pumpkins and bore fruits made out of firefly tails.

“It’s… not quite a fortress, but it should be enough to buy us some time to talk.” He arranged himself delicately on the ground in front of her, cross-legged, and made a face as he brushed a smear of red clay from his clothes. It was the only bit of dirt on him; Kamui wasn’t sure how he’d managed to keep himself so pristine on the ride over. Witchcraft, probably. 

In any case, there was something ominous about his wording. “Buy us some time from what?”

“From the locals,” said Leo grimly. “So, where to begin?”

“You said the dragon who destroyed this kingdom was possessing your father,” she supplied. “And… that he did all this after falling prey to degeneration.”

A shadow passed over Leo’s face, possibly mirroring her own. “Yes. His name was Anankos. The dragon, I mean. Again, I don’t know all the particulars, but it seems that before he degenerated - or possibly after, for all I know: maybe he always intended to use it against us. But I’ve gone off on a tangent. - anyway, about eight hundred years ago, he made our family a gift of a carved stone tablet. I don’t know if you remember it; until recently, it was mounted on the ceiling of the throne room.”

“I… think I remember.” Kamui frowned, head tilted to the side. “Did it have a horned man on it?”

“That’s the one,” he nodded. He had turned his face from her a little.

“Gods, that thing was creepy-looking. Then again, so was most of the decor in there,” she shuddered, remembering the cages hanging from the ceiling; how she had wondered if the skeletons in them were real, and how afraid she had been to ask.

“My reason for redecorating, thank you very much. Anyway, it had been kept sealed away in the Hall of Remains, until… about ’99, I think. Father had it brought up, as part of his inquiry over what was to be done to repel the invasion Arete warned him about. But, as it turned out… the tablet was actually a form of primitive scrying-mirror.”

“Like the kind Iago used to spy on me?” Kamui asked. Leo paused.

“… The tablet was a scrying-mirror,” he amended, his smirk a wicked ray of light peering out through the cloud that had been cast over his features for most of this conversation. “It worked a little different to the usual sort, though. Rather than showing the seer an image of whoever they meant to scry, this one allowed whoever was using it to open a two-way communication with Anankos; presumably using some sort of telepathy.”

“And that’s how Anankos got into his head? Like the scene in the play?” Kamui wasn’t certain how to feel about this. As a child, she had always imagined degenerated dragons as dumb animals, essentially just overgrown wyverns; after her own first transformation, her image was of a person trapped in their own mind, unable to process their actions past the dizzying pulse of light and noise pounding on their skull from all directions. The idea of a degenerated dragon who was clever - who could still think with enough clarity to form a complex plot around his destructive urges - that was downright chilling. It was the difference between a berserker and a serial killer.

“You catch on quick. Although… Father’s death was rather more visceral.” Leo shook his head slightly, as if to toss out the memory. “My reason for telling you this part verbally, rather than showing you.”

In all honesty, Kamui wasn’t sure how she’d have felt about that, either. It was obvious that whatever the crystal had shown Leo pained him, but her view of King Garon had never been as forgiving as her siblings’, even when she'd believed him to be her father. He really loved them all, Camilla and Xander had always insisted, every one of the many times the younger ones were given cause to doubt it. And Kamui had nodded along with it for their sakes; but privately, there had always been a small, angry part of her that had wondered why, if he loved them so much, he would never so much as pay her a visit. Why, if all the infighting at court grieved him so much, he hadn't simply ordered a stop to it. Why, if he insisted she was too frail to survive outside the fortress, any illnesses she came down with were attended to by her retainers, and she had never seen a physician in her life.

But at the time, these had seemed wicked things to think about the man who fed and sheltered her, and now they were wicked things to think about the dead. She pushed them from her mind with some vigour, and nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak.

“Anyway,” Leo interjected briskly. “The gist of it is that Anankos used Father to start the war, with the intention of visiting the same destruction on Nohr and Hoshido as he did down here.”

“So, when I… killed him…” Gods, it sounded so much more insensitive when she was saying it to his son. “Did this Anankos die too, or…?”

It was only after she’d asked the question that she realised how redundant it was: if he had, there would be no reason for Leo to tell her all this. Or at least, none as urgent as he’d made it seem.

Sure enough, he shook his head; as he spoke, it drooped a little, and he seemed to have become fascinated by his own fingers. “I had thought - or rather, hoped - that he might have done, while preparing as best I could for the possibility that he hadn’t. But then, about a month ago, he…”

He lifted his head; and, with one expression, the hollowness in his eyes, the dark circles beneath them, the pallor of his skin, were all explained. It was the face of true desperation; it spoke of the violation of having another person inside one’s mind, of the exhaustion of nights spent lying awake fretting, of the isolation of knowing that there was no telling this to anyone.

“He… got in,” he said quietly. The levelness of his tone was almost the worst part of hearing it. “The scrying-mirror was still active, and he used it as a doorway into my head. I destroyed the tablet, and that severed the communication before he could take over; but in answer to your question, I’m afraid he’s still very much alive.”

Kamui’s mind wandered back to the coronation; to all the times Leo’s oath had mentioned serving as a vessel for the will of a dragon. And to how uncomfortable he had looked, every time.

“Gods, Leo…” She reached out to stroke his cheek, as she sometimes had to comfort Sakura, and Elise before her; he flinched away from her hand before she could touch him.

“It’s fine,” he shrugged. “As I say, I had taken a few precautions there already. For a start, it’s why I kept up the ruse that Shigure is my legitimate nephew: since he’s technically the rightful king of Valla, Anankos would have multiple reasons to target him next. Naturally, I thought it better to keep him within throwing distance of someone who knows about…” He gestured around them vaguely. “All this.”

“I… see.” A slow, wicked grin spread over Kamui’s face. “So it’s not just because having a nephew to succeed you means you can keep living the bachelor life?”

Leo made a peculiar choking sound; his words came out as an indignant squeak. “Kamui, this is _serious_!”

“Ha, sorry, I’m just trying to cheer you up a little,” she cackled. “Sometimes laughter’s the only way to keep from screaming, right?”

He sighed, and allowed himself a wry twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Right.”

“So… how _would_ we go about defeating him permanently?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t even know if we _need_ to yet. Reanimation spells, of the sort used to control Father’s corpse, draw their energy from the caster’s life force. Depending on how much of it he’s spent already, he may just be posturing to play with our heads, and not regain the strength to launch his counterattack in our lifetime.”

Kamui felt a little flare of indignation at that; for once, she couldn’t bring herself to douse it. “That doesn’t mean we should just leave him behind as a mess for the next generation to clean up.”

“Ha, agreed. Trust me, I wouldn’t have brought you down here if that was the approach I meant to take.” Leo didn’t smile, but there was a rueful mildness to his voice that left Kamui feeling more than a little guilty for snapping. “No, for a start, I staged the play as a means of ferreting out anyone who might know something already.”

“Like in that book you wouldn’t stop going on about when you were fifteen? The really pretentious one about the prince with the evil stepfather?”

“I drew inspiration from one of the greatest literary classics our culture has produced, yes,” Leo retorted primly. “In any case, the play proved to be a complete waste of my time. You were the only person who seemed to recognise any of it, apart from my associate; and I’d already contacted her as soon as I’d destroyed the tablet.”

There it was; Kamui had been quite keen to discuss this person. “You mentioned her before. She knew Azura as well, you said.”

Leo nodded. “Nyx. She’s the Bursar over at the Mage Academy now, but she lived down here for a good few years, I think. Azura visited her regularly during that time; she knows more about all this than I do, or -” (Here he went a bit quiet.) “… Than I do. - anyway, she said she’d see if there was anything of use in the Academy’s archives.”

“So there’s three of us working on it? That’s a bit more doable.”

“Yes, three of us against one of the First Dragons,” said Leo sardonically. “You know, even with your legendary luck that might still be something of a tall order.”

“Don’t you remember the sagas?” she remarked sweetly. “All adventures start with three people. We’ll pick up more and more as we go, by doing them random favours, or just by charming them into joining our cause (that can be your job), and by the time we storm the dragon’s lair we’ll have a small army at our back.”

Leo was unconvinced. “Wait, why am _I_ Princess Caeda in this scenario? - anyway, I don’t think that’s how it works in real life.”

“Oh, sure it is,” said Kamui airily. “So do we just wait for Nyx to get back to us, or is there something you’ve been doing in the meantime?”

“Well, for the past year or so I’ve been trying to find any surviving material from Father’s research into all this. And I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to bring a few other people down here, but if we’re doing that I’d prefer to invest in a new warp book first. I’m not repeating that journey more times than I need to.”

“And do you… have any idea of what his next move might be?” He’d probably be able to guess more accurately, at least.

“I have a few hypotheses,” said Leo, in that deceptively modest tone that usually meant he had quite a lot of hypotheses, which were all very long and convoluted, “mostly depending on how much of his own life force was channelled into Father’s corpse. If your breaking his hold over Father was just a slap on the wrist for him, he’ll probably resume his plans fairly quickly, and try to provoke another war. If he invested too much in Father, though, he’d have to change tack; depending on how much damage he’s taken, it’s possible he’d have to find a new vessel to transfer his consciousness into permanently. It’s too early to say what he’s planning yet; trying to possess me would be a reasonable first step in either plan. Certainly it’s what I’d do, anyway.”

A thought occurred to Kamui then, one that she would give anything to somehow un-think. Maybe it was what she’d do too, if her own mind had been too far gone for too long: find a new body, with a new brain, one that was healthy enough to reverse the effects of degeneration and weak enough not to hurt any more people. One that would be easy to kill, as well: an old man, or a reedy bookworm.

 _My body was destroyed; my mind lost_. At the time, and ever since, she’d taken those words to be King Garon’s; but suppose it was Anankos himself who yearned for the release of death? Was it a cry for help?

She did not dare voice these thoughts to Leo. They were horrible, for one; for another, if she did, he’d ask how she’d arrived at that conclusion, and even if she lied, or refused to answer, he’d figure it out, damn him. If Anankos’s goal really was just another destructive rampage, her being a dragon would make her the ideal choice for his next vessel, and she was _not_ about to leave Leo fretting over that. Especially not after she'd gone back to Hoshido, too far away for him to do anything if she was targeted.

And really, how likely was it that she would be? She had never transformed in front of King Garon, and how else would Anankos know she was a dragon? No, all she'd have to do there was avoid transforming; and gods knew she was managing that well enough already.

The pulsing of the pouch under her sweater begged to differ, but she pointedly chose to ignore it.

 

* * *

 

“Well, I think we’ve just about covered everything,” Leo rose from the floor, and dusted himself off with as much dignity as anyone with clods of clay plastered to the back of his coat and the sides of his trouser-legs could manage. Ugh. “Any other business?”

“Not unless you have anything else you need to go over,” Kamui shrugged. She didn’t bother to brush the dirt from her skirt, but given how tousled and bedraggled she was from the ride over and the jump from the canyon, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. Gods only knew what people would think of them when they got back to the castle; they’d probably be taken for beggars, and turned away at the gates.

“Nothing that can’t be said back home.” Back in his warm, dry study, after a hot bath and a change of clothes, he thought wistfully.

“Okay. Let’s be off, then.”

With a wave of his hand, Leo condemned the ground cherry to wither as quickly as it had sprouted, casting their tiny cave in pitch blackness. He made to undo the earth-wall spell, when all at once, the cave was lit up again.

By an array of violet flames.

“ _Damn it_ ,” he hissed.

“What _is_ that?” asked Kamui, through the corner of her mouth.

“A local,” he said simply. “But they’re only supposed to be able to travel through… oh. Damn, damn, damn.”

“Through what?”

“Through water,” he sighed.

How had he forgotten that soil had water in it? He had been using it to sustain the bloody plant all throughout this conversation! Was it a want of sleep that had thus robbed him of his wits? His love for Kamui? His anxiety over this entire situation?

He sucked his breath in through his teeth, and turned himself back to the situation at hand (he could give himself the thrashing he deserved later). At such close quarters, at least it was easy to make out the Vallite’s silhouette. There was only one of them this time, thank the gods; it appeared to be armed with some sort of short lance.

It rammed the weapon at Leo now. Kamui’s blade was out before he had time to see her reach for the hilt; she caught the blow with a jarring _thunk_ that made the cave walls shake.

“You okay?” she asked, turning half an eye back to him.

He nodded, with an affirmative grunt, and began readying his spell.

“I’ll cover you. Stay behind me, and let me know if any more show up.” Kamui surged forward - insofar as one _could_ surge in a space of three square metres, anyway. Her movements were so wicked fast it was difficult to see her ghostly opponent past them; all Leo could see was Kamui parry, riposte, parry again, stepping lightly to a reel played on clanking steel and splashing water. Much as he was largely focussed on Brynhildr, the strategist in him couldn’t resist tracking her movements, imagining the tactics he might weave around her style. Up until now, all he had ever seen of her technique was Kamui the squire in the fortress, and then Kamui the traitor in the woods. This was his first glimpse of Kamui the hero, and she was…

She was magnificent. One part samurai, one part knight, two parts acrobat: four parts an artist.

Kamui feinted at her opponent’s head; as it lifted its weapon to block her, she turned on one heel and brought her foot crushingly forward into its side. The Vallite let out a choked groan.

Wait. Leo could have sworn he’d heard that sound before.

Kamui seemed to recognise it too; she paused for a moment, but collected herself just as quickly; she parried another blow, and drove the Vallite back against the wall. Inspiration struck Leo, then: he abandoned the tree he had been poised to plant, and instead turned his attentions back to his original plan.

He undid his earlier spell.

The wall came crashing down around them, in a cloud of red dust; as it fell, Leo sifted through it, drawing out all the stones he could find nestled in the clay, every last pebble, and pressed them all into a single dead weight. He slammed it over their assailant, and then drew it up and around its body in a thin unbroken wall, like a sarcophagus; their opponent was left to lie before them, with no opening for it to escape through the water in the earth.

Rather, Leo mentally amended, as his suspicion was confirmed, leaving no opening for _him_.

Kamui ran to Leo, choking on the clay dust and rubbing it from her eyes. “Are you alright? Did you see where…?”

She froze when her eyes fell past Leo’s shoulder, to land on Gunter.

“Milady. It’s a relief to see you’re well,” he said, stiff-upper-lipped even while lying flat on his back, with his arms bound to his sides. “And you, milord - although I suppose it would be Your Grace now. I’d congratulate you on the coronation, but from what I’ve heard, you’re not particularly thrilled about being king.”

“Gunter, is… is it really you?” Kamui started towards him, but he shook his head; the only part of his body he was free to move.

“Come no closer, milady.” His face had only been recognisable by the pattern of clay dust across his face, but now his skin turned opaque behind it. The gaunt voids marking out his eye sockets were now filled with the same unsettling vermillion Father’s eyes had been. “Do not approach me, unless you mean to strike my head from my shoulders. Anything less lethal than that, and he’ll only use the water in my blood as a path to drag me back into the ground.”

Kamui’s voice was a confused quaver. “What do you mean? Gunter, tell me you’re not…”

“You’re one of _his_ puppets.” Leo stalked forward, Brynhildr still open in his hand; if Anankos had no use for a headless puppet, he’d have even less use for one that had been blasted into scraps. “Aren’t you?”

Gunter nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. I held him off for as long as I could after Nyx escaped, but… as humiliating as it is to admit, his reinforcements kept coming, from all directions, until I had no way of escaping myself. When at last he broke through my defences, I was inches from death; or perhaps after all I am dead, and it’s only his sway over me that binds me to my body. It’s difficult to say which.”

“Gods…” Kamui’s eyes were wide with horror, but soon narrowed into something more resolute. “What can we do, Gunter? How do we free you?”

“I told you; by killing me, and in such a way that he can make no further use of my corpse.” He said all this through gritted teeth, and with great effort; presumably Anankos wanted this conversation to be over a good deal sooner than Gunter did. “I believe you already did the same for the king?”

Kamui nodded mutely. Gunter closed his eyes, and drew a whistling breath in through his nose. “That dealt a grievous blow to the wyrm. He poured so much of his power into the king; he’s too spent to - _ack_!”

He cut himself off with a pained choking sound; it took Leo a moment to realise that he was biting his own tongue. Gunter wrestled with himself for a moment, before continuing.

“Apologies. As I say, he’s become more desperate. He creates new puppets every day, trying to find one that can support him as a permanent vessel. But he can barely keep most of them going for more than an hour, before he has to consume them again.”

Kamui swallowed audibly. “When you say ‘consume’…”

“Yes, I mean it literally,” said Gunter grimly. “It’s the only way for him to reabsorb the fragments of his life force that were channelled into them.”

“And how do you know all this?” asked Leo, more than a little suspicious; if Gunter was possessed, there was hardly any way of telling whether it was he or Anankos who addressed them now. He could be playing them as easily as Niles played Cipher, and with a similar likelihood of cheating.

“You’ve seen it for yourself, milord. The strings binding the puppet to the puppeteer can be scaled from either end; I can see into his mind, just as he sees into mine.”

“You know what Anankos is thinking?” Kamui gave a relieved laugh. “Leo, think of how we can use this -”

Leo held up a hand; her joy died away on her face. “It’s true, that was how I experienced it. But I was alive, and uninjured, when Anankos tried to possess me; what if it’s different for reanimated corpses?” He turned back to Gunter. “Even if, as he says, he was dead - or close enough to make little difference - entering his body would still give the wyrm access to his brain, and everything stored in it. His opinions, his memories… everything he'd need to pass for Gunter. If we take him back with us, he could feed us whatever misinformation he wants, and he’ll be aware of everything we’re doing.”

“Which is precisely why I’m more use to you dead than alive, milord,” Gunter concurred, for it _was_ Gunter. His expression left little room for doubt; it was the face of a man who genuinely longed to die. It had been twelve years since Leo had last seen that look on another person’s face; he had shown no mercy then, but he would show it now.

As he began turning pages, he felt Kamui grip his elbow. Her face was shadowed by her fringe, but when she spoke, it was through gritted teeth.

“No,” she said quietly, but not softly; it was a stoic, resolute sort of quietness. “I can’t accept that. I’ll not take another innocent life, Leo; not if there’s any chance we could save him.”

“Kamui, I’ve already explained why we can’t leave him alive. And he _wants_ to die.”

“How do you know that? I mean…” She gesticulated vaguely, trying to find the words. “If there’s a limit to how many puppets Anankos can make, suppose there’s also a limit to how many he can use at one time? If we keep him tied to Gunter…”

“That isn’t how it works. I already told you that isn’t how it works.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t exactly relish the prospect of cutting him down myself. And if he is dead…”

“He’s not dead.” She blurted it out as if she’d just realised it herself. “Leo, I can _prove_ he’s not.”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Show your work?”

“When I was fighting… your father,” (she cringed apologetically at him here.) “There was one point, during the battle, where he succeeded in cutting me down. It’s all a bit convoluted, but basically, I had a near-death experience. In it, I was briefly reunited with my dead loved ones: Elise and Xander, Flora and Lilith…”

“And?” It was rhetorical; he was pretty sure he could see where she was going with this.

Kamui clasped her hand around the one he had on Brynhildr. “Leo, Gunter wasn’t there!”

Leo paused to process this. There were probably a few other explanations for why Gunter wouldn’t be there. Perhaps Kamui had dreamed the entire thing. Perhaps Gunter had still been alive at the time, and died after she’d come to. Perhaps what happened to you after you died depended on what you _believed_ would happen, and Gunter had been raised on a different religion and made a show of converting to the church of the Dusk Dragon later.

He grit his teeth, and cast his spell.

“Leo, _no_!”

Gunter’s stone prison was levitated about a foot off the ground. “If you can think of an easier way to stop Anankos from pulling him back when we ford the river, I’d like to hear it.”

If Kamui’s hunch was correct, there were ways they could play this. Keep Gunter under lock and key, and carefully guarded; make sure to only ask him very specific questions, and avoid telling him what the information he gave would be used for.

The fury on Kamui’s face melted into another relieved grin. “Oh Leo, thank -”

He raised a hand. “Don’t get too excited yet. I want Nyx to get a look at him before we make a final decision.”

“Gods, you children,” Gunter tutted; but there was a peculiar sort of… not softening to his features, precisely, but a lessening of their harshness, that might be taken for a hint of affection. “I had hoped I’d raised you to be more pragmatic than that.”

“I don’t know how much we’ll be able to do for you, Gunter,” Leo admitted. “But Nyx may yet. If she doesn’t, we may end up having to kill you anyway.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you see any sign of them on your end?”

Mozu shook her head. “No. But then, it’s so dark, I can hardly see the end of my own nose.”

Jakob did a kind of nervous shuffle, like a cross owl. “And they definitely passed this way?”

She held her lantern a little higher, to illuminate the road further ahead. The trail of hoof prints they’d followed continued along it, a little pattern of dents dried into the muck: older than the night’s frost, but newer than the morning’s rain.

“Mhm. The tracks are definitely shoed horses, and too narrow and far apart to be regular carthorses; plus there’s no scuff in the mud where the hairs round their ankles would be. We’re looking at a couple of tall, expensive horses here.” Horses were different game to what Mozu usually tracked, but all it took was some careful thinking and a bit of experience with farm animals.

Jakob muttered something under his breath that was probably a rude word. “We’ve been following this trail for five hours. What business could they have that far out of the city?”

“Niles said it was something to do with a project they’re working on,” Mozu shrugged. Jakob probably had a better idea of what kinds of things these fancy royals did together than she’d have. “Whatever it is, I hope they packed enough food for themselves. She’s missed two meals now.”

This had been the wrong thing to say. Jakob’s mouth tightened into a thin line, pinched down at the corners, and his nostrils began flaring, in and out, like an angry bull’s. He weaved past her and stalked ahead in silence, following the tracks with his own lantern.

Mozu would never have said so out loud, but inside her head, his fretting was starting to get on her nerves a little. She was really worried too, of course, but she’d had to work through that the entire five hours they’d been out here. Letting herself get into a flap over it would only make it harder to do what needed doing; Jakob himself had taught her that, not so very long ago. Besides, Lady Kamui was probably more use in a fight than both Mozu and Jakob put together; if they ran into any trouble out here, Mozu would be the one praying for _her_ to come rescue _them_.

All the same, she scurried to catch up with him. He had stopped dead in his tracks a few ells ahead of her; as she drew close, he raised a hand to hush her. A strange, chirruping sort of howl echoed above them.

“Wyverns,” he labelled it, grimly.

“I don’t think Lady Kamui’s been got by a wyvern,” Mozu assured him. “For a start, she can make herself a lot bigger than they are.”

He sighed. “Right you are. Excuse my dithering; I’ll not be myself until I know Lady Kamui is safely returned to us.”

Mozu patted his arm. “It’s okay, I get it. I’d be lost without her too, remember?”

He swallowed at that. They’d swapped their stories during the war, and found them to be almost the same: both had lost everything they had, and been rescued in their darkest moment by Lady Kamui. It was how they’d become such good friends in the first place, Mozu supposed.

“Well, then, let’s not linger here,” he said briskly. “Lady Kamui may be a match for a wyvern, but I daresay we’d make for easier prey.”

Well, now he was sounding more like himself. Mozu smiled quietly into her scarf, as she led the way. The horses’ tracks led them a merry dance through the lower peaks of the mountains, winding around crags and over them; but it was a crisp, clear night, sprinkled with stars both in the sky and in the moon’s broken reflection on the river. It would have been a pretty pleasant hike, if they’d been out for less serious reasons.

The peace was spoiled a bit when Jakob let out a cry that nearly gave Mozu a heart attack. They had reached the end of the trail.

“It stops here. Why does it stop here?” he muttered, mostly to himself.

“It stops at the river’s edge, by the shallows,” Mozu pointed out. “They’ll have forded it, probably.”

“But where would they be going? There’s nothing out that way but…” His eyes went wide. “Oh, hell’s teeth. What the blazes would they be doing _there_?”

Well, Mozu wasn't sure what to do now. The river would be easy enough to ford on horseback, but the water was too fast and freezing for them to wade it, and she couldn’t see anything that might work as a footbridge.

She was scanning the river’s opposite bank for any sign of another crossing, when a faint drumming echoed over from the peaks ahead. As it drew nearer, Mozu felt herself grin.

“Ask them yourself,” she said brightly. Sure enough, Lady Kamui had appeared on the opposite side of the river, closely followed by King Leo. “Hoy! Lady Kamui!”

Jakob’s face lit up, as their lady waved to them and spurred her horse into the water. They both began to start towards her; but then Jakob stopped, mouth hanging open in a disbelieving O. As Lady Kamui and King Leo drew nearer, Mozu could see something floating behind them that proved to be a third person: an old man, hovering off the ground in what looked to be some kind of stone coffin.

Mozu disregarded that, and kept running. She could ask questions later; Lady Kamui was safe, and that was all that mattered.

Leastways, she was safe _now_. Gods only knew where she'd been; her dress and cloak were a filthy mess, her face was streaked with dirt, and half of her hair had fallen out of her braids to hang in a pair of frizzy bird’s-nests on either side of her fringe (which was mostly sticking straight up in the air). She didn’t seem hurt, though, when she leapt from the saddle and collided with Mozu in a tight bear hug.

“Did you both come all this way just to meet me?” she laughed.

It was only then that all the worries that had been festering in the back of Mozu’s mind all day announced themselves proper, in one big rush; she clung tremblingly to Lady Kamui’s cloak, and tried to sniff back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. “Oh, Lady Kamui, we were so worried…”

“I’m sorry for being gone so long,” Lady Kamui murmured into her hair, as she stroked it soothingly. “And for not telling you. We were…” She paused for a moment. Mozu pulled away enough to look up at her; she looked troubled, and her eyes had taken on a faraway look, same as they had at the breakfast table that morning. “Um. I really am sorry for worrying you.”

“Never apologise for that, milady. It’s our job to fret over you,” put in Jakob; but his expression hadn’t softened any, and he still hadn't taken his eyes off the old man. “So this was your errand, as I take it?”

Lady Kamui nodded. “Leo… received word that Gunter had survived, and was being held captive near the canyon. So we went to rescue him.” She looked across at King Leo; he nodded at her.

Mozu couldn’t hold her tongue at that. “You went out to fight bad guys without taking any guards with you? Ach, milady, you’ll be the death of us…”

“I’m sorry,” Lady Kamui repeated, but that was all she said; it didn’t go over Mozu’s head that she hadn’t promised not to do it again. Gosh, but she kept them on their toes.

“For what it’s worth, she still put in an okayish showing unaided,” King Leo remarked drily, as he dismounted his own horse.

“‘Unaided’ being the operative word,” Lady Kamui bantered back.

“Hey, there’s a limit to how much magic can do at close range.”

Mozu observed their wicked grins a little wistfully; she’d been an only child growing up, but a lot of the other children in her village were like siblings to her. The way she’d interacted with them had been very like Lady Kamui’s interactions with the king and princess of Nohr. She’d have given anything to see those old friends of hers again, even just for one day.

Jakob strode over to the old man - to Mr. Gunter. Mozu had heard a little about him, both from Jakob and Felicia; they didn’t speak of him often, but when they did, it was obvious that they had both been terribly fond of him. But you’d never have guessed that, from the way Jakob spoke to him. “So you aren’t dead, old man. Can you give me back the time I wasted grieving over your demise?”

Mr. Gunter snorted. “So you haven’t changed. Normally I’d scold you for that, but I suppose it’s a relief to see that some things are a constant.”

“More to the point, what are you doing in that box?”

“It’s to stop my feet from getting wet,” said Mr. Gunter, with a completely straight face. “Now, if you’d be so good as to help an old man…”

King Leo flicked his fingers, and the box opened. Mr. Gunter stepped out, and (with Jakob’s grumbling assistance) got onto the king’s horse instead.

“Are you sure you’re okay to walk?” Lady Kamui asked King Leo.

“I’m not made of porcelain, Kamui. I can manage, er…” He turned to Jakob. “How much farther is it back to the capital, on foot?”

“Excluding the amount of time taken to return to the castle, five hours,” Jakob supplied. King Leo made a noise like a wounded fox.

“Yes, that. I. Can manage. That,” he said, through a rather fixed smile. Lady Kamui laughed.

“We can all take it in turns to ride Éowyn,” she said soothingly, gesturing to her horse: a beautiful little lady, with fur as white as her mistress’s hair. It was all Mozu could do not to coo over her openly.

“I’ll never understand how you came up with that name,” said King Leo flatly.

It would be morning by the time they got back, Mozu figured. As soon as they did, she’d draw Lady Kamui a hot bath, and see to it that she got a good hearty breakfast, with as many drop scones as she could eat without exploding.

She just wished the princess would let them do more for her than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry for the length of this one ^^; still, I told you Gunter would pop up again, didn't I?
> 
> \- I’m still blown away by what a positive reception this dumb fic has had, thank you all so much! But if you feel like something isn’t working, or could be improved upon, please don’t hesitate to tell me that as well; I know fanfics are meant more as a fun thing than something that has to be perfect, but I still want to do as good a job of this as I can, and that means knowing which areas other people think I need to fix, as well as the faults I am already sensible of and working on.
> 
> \- Camilla being left-handed was one of my favourite random headcanons for a while, but actually, apparently it’s backed up by… something about the way she holds her weapon in official art? I don’t know, there was a whole thread on it which I haven’t been able to find again, but yes. While we’re here, I also headcanon that Leo has trained himself to be ambidextrous in case he ever has to have his dominant hand amputated (very dark, I know, but he's a neurotic strategist who’s spent his entire life surrounded by graphic violence; of COURSE he’s going to think of these things), and now naturally uses both hands interchangeably; hence why he holds Brynhildr in his right hand and turns the pages with his left (which seems to be more of a southpaw thing), but is still depicted writing with his right hand in that one Kozaki drawing.
> 
> \- “Merewif” is one of various epithets given to Grendel’s mother in Beowulf. It literally translates to “water-woman”; I like the idea of it as the name of a river because it suggests some kind of story behind the name, possibly one with a protagonist whose situation draws parallels to Azura’s (some sort of Melusina figure, perhaps?).
> 
> \- Literally the only reason electricity isn’t the go-to power source in the FEverse is the ecological issue with using magic for everything. I find it very hard to believe that they’d know how to manipulate lightning and never apply that to engineering.
> 
> \- Before you yell at me (and rightly so): Nohrian dire-wolves are based on the real-life Pleistocene ones, not the ones in Game of Thrones. Nobody’s skinned Nymeria, don’t worry. But yeah, given how much of Nohr’s topography is made up of forests and mountains, I feel like there’d be a lot of critters like that about (you know, in addition to all the wyverns), which only adds to their difficulties in trying to graze livestock.
> 
> \- In the context of the Anglo-Saxon language, the name Éowyn roughly translates to “one who delights in horses” (well, sort of; the "Éo" prefix was an invention of Tolkien’s to fill a gap in the dead language’s lexicon). Which, to be fair to Kamui, I daresay her horse might.
> 
> \- Scientists actually have successfully performed levitation on live animals using the method Leo described. The research is still ongoing, and I don’t think they’ve used it on anything bigger than a mouse yet, but isn’t that just the coolest thing?! :D
> 
> \- It’s true that Garon was a lot more affable in temperament before he got possessed, but the idea that he was in any way a good parent back then can honestly bog right off. Anankos made him start the war; he didn't make him turn a blind eye while his mistresses literally murdered his kids. Yeah, that’s just Garon being a selfish tosser and I’m not going to make excuses for that, sorry.
> 
> \- I’m still not totally sure whether I want Jakob and Mozu’s dynamic to be a romance, or whether to keep it platonic and just handwave Kamui’s comment as her reading too much into it because she ships them; so I figured my best bet was to keep it vague for now and see what you guys prefer. Either way, their supports are some of my favourites in the entire game, and they’re a very fun pair to write for :D


	9. Strange Days Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hinoka is looking for a job, and then she finds a job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I. Can I get away with introducing a new main character this late in the story.  
> I mean probably not, but. Bear with.

 

 

> _“Regarding the scribbled note I received this morning (which I assume based on the pretentious phrasing, and the fact that it was signed “L.”, is from you): owing to the nature of The Aforementioned Location and its denizens, I must ask that you not make mention of it, or of your experiences there, in writing. While I do not doubt that you exercise great care in choosing your words (as evidenced by your insistence on fitting your entire vocabulary onto the page in any given letter), all it would take is one misstep to invoke the curse. In future, please limit these discussions to conversations in person._
> 
> _As to your queries regarding our mutual friend: while unsure as to when and how he would next address us, I have spent the month following the arrival of your previous, less verbose note scouring the library here for anything that might be of use. I will be free to discuss my findings at two o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow; ideally, bring both his representative and our newest associate with you._
> 
> _I conclude this letter with a warning: as heartening and convenient as it is to believe that one we had thought to be dead may yet live, do not trust a hope. To allow emotion to cloud your judgement, in matters that affect more than self alone, is to remain forever a child._
> 
> _With an admittedly unrealistic wish that this letter should find you in good health,_
> 
> _Nyx, Bursar of the Mage Academy (which P.S. is still trying to scrape together the funds for new laboratory equipment, and greatly appreciates the patronage of the crown)”_
> 
> \- A letter from Professor Nyx (who was, as she signs herself, the bursar and, later, arch-chancellor of the Mage Academy), to King Leo, dated December 1st, 1319. The two appear to have been friends, and wrote to each other regularly throughout her life; most of their early exchanges hold to the cryptic style shown here. Most of their correspondence is currently preserved in the academy’s archives, although letters of particular historical importance (including this one) have occasionally been brought out for display in the National Museum.
> 
> The king never made a formal response to this letter; but after her death, a note in his handwriting was found among her possessions, written the following day and reading _“Dear Kettle, I am writing to inform you that you are black. Regards, Pot”_. Some historians have speculated this was a rebuttal to her comment about the verbosity of his writings.

 

Looking at the Hoshidan capital, one would never have guessed that it had still been under siege just over a year ago.

The streets were a lively weave of merchants, travellers, and even the occasional street performer. An aproned vendor handed out yakiimo, wrapped in coloured paper, to be eaten in the maple groves while taking in the last dying embers of the autumn foliage. Fashionably-dressed youths tossed their parents’ money at red-and-gold kanzashi for their girls, sliding the glittering fripperies into their hair with the kind of gentle reverence most people reserved for shrine offerings. A gaggle of children darted about the square with their kites, optimistically determined to get them off the ground despite the stillness of the air.

From up on her plinth at the plaza’s centre, Mother supervised the scene, smiling gently down at the picture of peace and contentment she had given her life to paint.

Nothing to report. Hinoka sighed with what she told herself was relief, and spurred her pegasus back to the stable yard. Flying over the castle’s high walls was worryingly easy: a little voice at the back of her mind hissed that if whoever designed Castle Shirasagi had had any sense, they’d have fitted it with more ballistae. She mentally shushed that thought, reminding herself that the only fliers likely to pass over these walls now were herself and the other Sky Knights.

And that was a good thing.

“Good work today, Pochi,” she said, clapping his neck affectionately, once she’d dismounted. Hinoka only ever called her pegasus by name when there was nobody else around. When she’d first named the poor creature some twelve years ago, she had used a suggestion of Azama and Setsuna’s in a misguided attempt to bond with her new retainers, and only learned what it meant later; a debacle which had set the tone for their dynamic forever afterwards.

Inside the stables, she was met with a livelier scene. The stable-master, a robust crop-headed woman in her late thirties, greeted Hinoka with a bow as low as she could manage with her arms full of tack. She, along with the junior stable-hand, were busy attending to a horse Hinoka had never seen before: a stocky chestnut fellow, light enough to serve as a riding-horse, but sturdy enough to fare just as well in a fight. It seemed whoever had outfitted him had anticipated that he would be seeing battle: he was barded in stiff leather-plate and oddments of mail.

“Ah, excuse us, Lady Hinoka,” cringed the stable-master. “I’ll see to your mount immediately. - Oharu, you do the rest.” The stable-hand swept her head down in a firm, soldierly nod.

“No, it’s fine; I enjoy doing it myself. Whose is he?” asked Hinoka, genuinely puzzled: he wasn’t thoroughbred enough to belong to an aristocrat or a merchant lord, but anyone of a lower standing than that wouldn’t be able to afford the armour.

“The Governor of Kouga’s, milady,” piped up Oharu. This was followed by a wince, and a mumbled apology for speaking without permission, which Hinoka was quick to hand-wave as nothing to forgive.

“Shura? Huh. Wonder what brought him here.” In truth, Hinoka was mostly addressing this to herself. Last autumn, Ryouma had donated the funds and resources Shura had needed to rebuild Kouga, and Takumi and Kamui had gone down to lend a hand with getting things up and running (Hinoka might have gone with them, but at that point their own city was still recovering from the siege, and so her efforts were still needed here); but Shura had asked nothing from any of them after that.

“Apparently he has some business with Lord Takumi,” the stable-master elaborated. “I’m sorry, I don’t know any of the particulars beyond that; it wasn't really my place to ask.”

Hinoka nodded her thanks, and went to settle Pochi in his stall herself, making a mental note to go and say hello to Shura once he’d finished whatever Takumi needed him for. In the meantime: lunch.

The walk back up to the keep was a rather dreary one. The sun had gone to slack off for a spell, and the clouds covering for it cast down a faint drizzle. The old maples hanging over the wall had shaken most of their leaves onto the steps; the servants had raked away the worst of it, but a few stragglers scuttled about, which Hinoka kicked up listlessly.

Not for the first or last time, she found herself missing her nephew. Every day, when she came in from her patrol, he would always be waiting here on the stairs, usually plotting to ambush her with a volley of questions about the duties of a Sky Knight, and how one went about becoming one, and how soon he could enlist. Hearing his enthusiasm, she’d never had the heart to tell him that in peacetime, their role was limited to patrolling the streets for criminals who never struck, watching the borders for invading forces that never came, and training new recruits to handle weapons they never had any cause to draw. She’d had to invent ways to make her daily routine sound interesting, which in turn had made it genuinely seem to her to be.

And every time she tried to picture him in the Nohrian castle, she always ended up imagining other children: frightened little girls locked away in towers, or slashed up with wounds that would still leave visible marks twenty years later.

But there was nothing to be done about that. As much as his being packed off to Nohr tore her apart inside, Hinoka was painfully conscious of the fact that she hadn’t any right to openly object to it at all. She’d spent so much of the war insisting that blood ran thicker than water, little realising that the logic she used to strengthen her own claim to Kamui’s kinship would equally serve to weaken her claim to Shigure’s. Looking to deny the boy his birthright by going back on her word now would be downright cowardly, and probably not a good move politically.

It certainly didn’t help that Kamui had been the one to go with him, though. Nothing could rub salt in the wound quite like another parting from her sister, a grim reminder of what had happened the last time a king of Nohr had brought one of her relatives to live with him. But as she repeatedly reminded herself, Kamui was only stopping for a visit, and would be home soon. The war was over, and their feud with Nohr with it; Kamui had freed herself, without Hinoka’s help, and could come and go between both countries as she pleased; Hinoka’s weapon would never taste blood again.

And that was good. Really.

Hinoka was pulled from this downward spiral, and back to the present moment, by a piping cry of “’ _Bacchan_!”

Her other nephew was clambering up the stairs behind her on his hands and knees, like a bear climbing a tree. Hinoka stooped to pick him up; a steep flight of stone steps probably wasn’t the best place to let a year-old infant practice walking.

“Hey, Shiro,” she mumbled, as she hefted him onto her hip. He seized the end of her scarf in his pudgy little fist and began chewing on it. “Where’re your parents?”

As if on cue, the boy’s mother came ambling by, absently mouthing something to herself. She paused when she saw Hinoka, looked her up and down for a moment, and nodded to herself without otherwise acknowledging her. For whatever reason, she looked faintly annoyed.

“Er, hi,” Hinoka tried. “Something wrong?”

Orochi’s eyes widened at the sudden sound, but she recovered quickly and shook her head. “No, no, this went right. You were there on the stair, just like the cards said you’d be.”

Hinoka’s gaze darted from Orochi’s face, to Shiro’s, to Orochi’s again. “Is… that a bad thing?”

“Probably.” Orochi paused. “Well. Obviously it’s not a bad thing that you were here to keep an eye on him, but… ugh, pay me no mind. It’s just a bit of a hoo-ha going on with my magic.” She came up the stairs, and took Shiro from Hinoka; he released her scarf with a thread of baby spit leading from it.

They sat down side-by-side on the stair, and were both silent for a long moment. Hinoka scratched at the back of her neck awkwardly.

“So. Um. Whatever’s wrong… I don’t know a huge amount about all this magicky stuff, but if there _is_ anything I can do to help…” It was an offer she made despite her better judgement; before Orochi became queen, Hinoka had heard plenty of horror stories about all the elaborate trickery she’d use to con people into doing whatever chores she needed done and didn’t feel like doing herself.

Orochi laughed, and waved a hand in front of her face. “Heh, nah, it’s fine. Sweet of you to offer, though.”

Well, she wasn’t plotting anything; she must genuinely be worried about something, Hinoka supposed. “Okay, but is that ‘it’s fine’ as in ‘it’s fine’, or ‘it’s fine’ as in ‘I’m Orochi and I always say everything’s fine, even when it’s not’?”

“Hey, glass houses, Hinoka!” She cackled to herself again at that, but the laugh quickly grew more subdued. “Honestly. I don’t even know how I’d go about _starting_ to tell anyone this, frankly.”

Hinoka shrugged. “Try me.”

Orochi gave her an odd look, out of the corners of her eyes. “You’ve… got a pretty sensible head on your shoulders, don’t you, Hinoka? Practical without being too cynical.”

“Eh, I like to think I try,” mumbled Hinoka.

“Right. So I guess if there’s anyone I can talk to without freaking them out, you’d be my best bet. Okay, you’re my accomplice now.”

“Accomplice?” Hopefully her sister-in-law was being facetious, and Hinoka hadn’t actually just volunteered to help pull off some kind of crime; with Orochi, it was honestly difficult to tell.

In any case, she didn’t bother to elaborate. “Anyway, you’ve probably heard this come up a few times, but lately I’ve been having some trouble with my readings.”

“Readings? Like that stuff you do with the cards?”

“Yes, exactly,” Orochi nodded. “Except I still have this problem when I try to use different methods; tea-leaves and dragon bones and such. I can still predict the _near_ future easily enough. But then, whenever I try to see further ahead than the end of this winter…” She grimaced. “The message comes out all garbled. It’s like… oh, how to describe it. It’s like trying to read a letter that’s been soaked in water, until all the ink’s run down the page. I can’t make sense of it at all.”

Hinoka frowned. “Well, that’s weird. Why d’you suppose that is?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be dumping all this on you.” Orochi shrugged. “At first I thought it might have something to do with the war. Like maybe the way both sides weaponised hexes drained away the earth’s stores of magic, or something. But when I discussed it with the bigwigs at the Mage Academy, they said it would take more than one war to do that kind of damage to Nohr’s soil, never mind Hoshido’s.”

“So you think there’s some other reason?” Hinoka began wracking her brains for one; an effort that wasn’t made any easier by the fact that she only had a very vague understanding of how magic actually worked. “Like something that stops you from seeing things happening in the long term?”

“Yes. Or there not _being_ a long term,” said Orochi flatly.

Hinoka’s jaw dropped. “You think you’ve predicted your own death?!”

But Orochi shook her head. “My mother predicted hers before it happened. It just comes up the same way any other death would. No, if this is any kind of omen, it’s warning something worse than that.”

“… Oh.”

“Yeah.” Orochi laughed wryly. “You see why I haven’t brought this up with anyone else?”

“That… might cause a bit of mass hysteria, yeah,” Hinoka grimaced. “So can you see anything in the near future that might _lead_ to… whatever’s about to happen, happening?”

“No, that’s the weirdest part. Whenever I try to ask about anything relating to this whole business, I get the same sort of answer as I do when I try to predict the far future. It’s like there’s something blocking me from outside. Or someone,” she added grimly.

A strange feeling overtook Hinoka then. Chains of silent, nameless dread looped around the pit of her stomach, pulled nauseatingly tight; but, at the centre of the coil, there was a spark of excitement, exhilaration - hope, one might almost say. It was the feeling a bird has when poised to fly the nest; it was the feeling a turtle has when it first makes its perilous shuffle over the sand.

It was the feeling Hinoka had had, before every battle in her life: that no matter what dangers awaited her if she did this thing, it was still the thing she had been put on this earth to do. She could no more retire from the field of battle than the bird could swear off flying, or the turtle could forsake the sea.

These thoughts only came out as a mumbled offer. “Like I said, I’m probably not going to be much use, but if you do figure out who’s doing this, and you want any help catching the guy…”

“I’ll call you in to do the heavy lifting, yeah,” Orochi nodded. “But in the meantime, just having someone to bounce ideas off of would be handy, honestly. In my line of work, people go into massive strops if you predict that their dogs are about to die, or warn them that their lovers are going to jilt them and run off with all their money. If I went around saying the apocalypse is scheduled to happen in the next few months, I’d either be laughed out of court or angry-mobbed out.”

“Ryouma wouldn’t let that happen. And neither would I,” said Hinoka firmly. She’d expected Orochi to cackle at that, and perhaps make some quip about how she could always rely on her favourite pawns; when Orochi answered with silence and a wan half-smile, Hinoka’s stomach gave a little heave of anxiety. “Uh, are you okay there?”

Orochi nodded, but her face was no less wistful. “Yeah, just… remembering the last person to say as much. She’d be proud of you, I think.”

A lump rose in Hinoka’s throat; her efforts to swallow it down were aided by the grumble of her stomach.

“Dammit, I forgot to eat lunch,” Hinoka sighed; then winced, as she realised what she’d said, and who she’d said it in front of. “Ah, crap, I didn’t mean to swear in front of - oh, dammit…”

Now _there_ was Orochi’s cackle.

“Still a better influence on him than his mother,” she said, with a wry grin. “C’mon, what say we go pester the kitchen staff.”

 

* * *

 

The spire of the Mage Academy loomed so far above as to be barely visible.

For once, Kamui didn’t have to ask Leo about that: before the war broke out, the two of them had spent several afternoons poring over the academy’s prospectus (excitedly in Leo’s case, and enviously in Kamui’s). As such, this was one place she already did know a thing or two about. The tower had been built by Brynhildr herself; originally, it had been used as a stronghold in her battle against Siegfried. Since it was impossible to reach the tower from the ground, Siegfried’s army had captured and tamed a flock of wyverns, and launched an airborne siege as the first force of Malig Knights (some of the more fanciful versions of the story had Siegfried himself leading the charge on the back of the Dusk Dragon, but that part had been pretty thoroughly shot down by Leo the first time they’d heard it).

“Are you holding up okay?” she asked him instead: he was looking even paler than he did normally.

“Yes, thank you,” he said, clipping the words out through a thin white scissor-blade of a mouth. “I’m quite well. I’m enjoying the walk. I do not have blisters that feel like they’re somehow bigger than my actual feet.”

“Forgive me, milord,” said Gunter, from up on Leo’s horse. “If you’d rather ride your horse, I can manage the walk myself.”

Leo shook his head. “I was mostly being facetious. The only reason I bothered bringing Nosferatu such a short distance out of the city was to reduce the risk of you being dragged off into the nearest stream.” He grinned then. “Besides, it wouldn’t exactly do wonders for my public image if people saw me make a two-mile journey on horseback, while forcing an elderly gentleman and a Hoshidan princess to keep up with me on foot, would it?”

“Elderly yourself,” Gunter retorted. “I’m in my prime. I suppose it is a fair point, though.”

“Psst.” Kamui poked Leo in the shoulder. “If the walk _does_ get to be too much for you, just say the word and I’ll carry you.”

Leo looked at her for a long moment. “You know, the scariest part is I can barely tell if you’re joking or not.”

“You were happy enough to let Xander carry you,” Kamui pointed out, with mock indignation. “Half the times you came to visit when we were kids, you’d come in on his shoulders.”

“‘When we were kids’ being the operative words,” said Leo witheringly. “And… a piggyback ride, really?”

“Ah, you’re right, that’s beneath your dignity. I’m sorry, I’ll carry you like a princess if you’d rather.”

“You’ll carry me not at all,” Leo insisted, shaking his head at Kamui’s snickering fit. “Anyway, where’s - ah.”

They turned to glance behind; Odin had come to a halt, and was gaping openly at the Academy. He was a little too far away to see clearly, but Kamui could have sworn there were stars in his eyes.

“Feeling nostalgic?” Leo sounded a little calmer now. Odin opened and closed his mouth a few times, but it took half a minute to compose himself enough to let out more than an excited hiss.

“More than that by far, milord!” he exploded, finally. “We look upon the tower built by the first wielder of thine own dark tome, raised into the thundering skies to safeguard all knowledge of the arcane in this world!”

“It is something,” Leo concurred, a little wistfully. “I’ve always wondered if it’s as impressive inside as it is on the outside.”

“Oh, it is! The library alone spans a space as vast as -” Odin paused, and apparently thought better of finishing. “Yeah, it’s pretty great. It’s not for everyone, though.”

Leo shook his head slightly, and when he spoke again, it was clear and calm as ever. “Shall we, then?”

They continued on, over a plain where the jagged rocks gave way to tangles of grass as dark as ivy, and as tough as mandrake roots; it had a brittle sort of crunching feel to it when stepped on. The academy was directly overhead now. Up close, it appeared to be upside-down: its foundations were spiked with stalactitic structures that tapered downwards in a way that almost mirrored the turrets at Castle Krakenburg. Of course she’d seen for herself, both in the prospectus and on the flight over from Hoshido, that it had towers pointing right-side-up too; Kamui wondered if these reversed ones were just a design feature, or if the mages actually used them, same as any other room in the building. She supposed that if they did, they must just look like normal tower-rooms from the inside, but she still chuckled to herself at the mental image of a classroom where all the desks and bookshelves hung off the ceiling like bats.

She turned to ask Leo if he knew, but he, too, was frowning up at it, his neck strained so far back that Kamui was half-expecting his head to fall off.

“So how do we get up?” he asked; doubtless he had meant the question for Odin, but he appeared to address it to the building itself. “Do they levitate us up from above, or do we have to, ah… make our own arrangements?” Here he tapped Brynhildr, buckled to his hip under his coat.

Odin shook his head. “Neither. Travelling from one part of the academy to another is mostly done by -”

There was an odd jolting sensation. The world around them warped and distorted, like Kamui was looking at it through cut glass. A rush of cold air, and the feeling of being yanked in two directions at once, swept over her. It was a sensation she’d only felt twice in her life: once on the way to Notre Sagesse, the first time she’d visited, and once on the way back.

When the feeling subsided, they were in a circular stone hall, lit dimly by a scattering of those floating candles Leo was so fond of.

“- By warping,” concluded Odin, a little groggily. He took a deep breath through his nose, and continued in his usual tone. “You are welcome, my variously-ordained brethren, to the apotheosis of academia, the birthplace of Odin Dark: the hallowed halls of the Mage Academy!”

He gestured around with a flourish at the empty hall. Nosferatu gave an unimpressed snort. Leo, meanwhile, only looked relieved; avoiding the more exciting parts of the academy probably made it easier for him to be here.

“So where would we go to find Nyx?” he asked.

Odin stroked his chin. “Well, I suppose the next objective on this quest would be to register our arrival at the High Table Of Administration -”

Again the world fell apart and reformed. This time, they stood in a spacious hall, in front of a desk manned by a sharp-nosed fellow around Ryouma’s age, who was regarding them from behind a bushy black beard and a pair of very thick-lensed spectacles. He looked up with a perplexed frown when he saw them.

“Is that you, Odin?” he asked, adjusting the frame of his glasses and squinting, as if he was trying to make sure they were working. “It’s been years.”

“Indeed yes, esteemed Custodian of the Gates of Knowledge! The quest which drove me from these halls now bids me return, that I and my liege might seek parlance with she who guards the wealth of these proud towers.” Odin leaned over the desk to search for their names in the yellowed jotter lying open in front of the secretary. “2PM appointment, the letter said.”

The man peered over the inked lines, then nodded to himself. “Ah, yes. 2PM, Nyx to meet with…” He started back with a yelp. “Your Grace!” he cried, with an awkward bow that nearly slammed his head into the desk. “It’s, it’s an honour to see you grace our halls.”

“Thank you. It’s an honour to be here,” said Leo; he had his best diplomat smile on, but there was a very slight upward tug to the insides of his eyebrows. And no wonder: this part of the academy was much more along the lines of what he and Kamui had always imagined when they spoke of the place. It was a high-ceilinged hall, built from dark-brown stone and carved with the most intricate masonry. The walls were hung with rich tapestries - mostly depicting various battles in which mages had played a prominent part - punctuated by the occasional rose window carved out between them. The air was heavy with the warm, dusty smell of old parchment.

Black-robed students staggered about under ambitiously high-stacked armfuls of books, and one could occasionally pick up snippets of their discussions of alchemy and astronomy. Most of these discussions died away in favour of staring, once their eyes fell on Kamui and Leo’s party; it took Kamui a moment to realise why, seeing as Leo wasn’t wearing his crown, before it occurred to her that maybe it was the sudden appearance of a very large war-horse in front of the administration desk that had drawn their attention.

“Anyway, where might we find Nyx?” Leo pressed.

“Ah, of course, Your Grace. She’ll be waiting in the Bursar’s Office -”

No sooner had he said this than they found themselves warping again; this time they stood outside an iron-studded door, with a tarnished plaque labelling it “BURSAR’S OFFICE”.

“Wait, I’m confused. Are you the one doing that?” Kamui asked Odin.

He shook his head. “Not I, Lady Kamui: it is the academy itself. Enchantments lie within the very stones and mortar of these wizardly walls, and among them the Warp spell. You need only whisper, in the mind, a notion of your intended destination, and the untapped ensorcellments swirling about us even now will whisk you there anon!”

“So you just have to think of where you want to be?” Kamui considered this for a moment. “But then what happens if you start to get sleepy in the middle of a lecture? Do you suddenly warp to the dormitory? Or what if you have to go to the bathroom when there’s someone already using it?”

Odin’s expression soured. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Anyway, going back to the issue at hand…” Leo tapped primly on the door.

“What do you want?” came a muffled voice from the other side.

“It’s me,” Leo answered. There was a pause.

“Who’s ‘me’?” demanded Nyx, a little peevishly. “Don’t speak so casually when bothering your associates in their workplaces, child.”

Kamui hadn't been sure what to expect this Nyx person to be like, but Leo honestly looked a little cowed. “Of course, yes. Er. It’s King Leo. I’m here to enquire about the business I mentioned in my letter yesterday morning.”

Another pause. “Continue.”

Leo sighed, and rolled his eyes. “And possibly to discuss the academy’s budget, if we have time.”

This time the response was immediate. “Enter.”

They did, in a heap on the floor.

“We could have managed the door,” Leo protested. “Kamui, you’re sitting on my arm.”

She shuffled to her feet with a groaned apology, and looked up to where Nyx was regarding them from behind another desk, hands steepled in front of her. Kamui had already heard a little about Nyx’s condition from Leo and Gunter on the ride over, but not in any great detail. Her understanding of the situation was that Nyx was a good deal older than she looked, and very sensitive about it. In all honesty, though, it was difficult to see exactly how old she looked; the lower half of her face was covered by a black veil, and her desk and chair stood on a stepped plinth that raised her high above them - from Kamui’s vantage point on the floor, at least.

The part of her face that was visible was pinched into a quizzical frown. “And does the horse have an appointment as well?”

Nosferatu was the only one still on his feet; Gunter dismounted with a good deal of clicking and creaking, and not all of it from the armour. Kamui very nearly went to help him, but supposed he’d be offended if she did.

“It’s harder for me to escape if my feet aren’t touching the ground,” he explained. “You’ll have been briefed on the details already, I suppose.”

She nodded once, briskly. “Well, then. He’ll have to wait outside.”

Nosferatu disappeared. There was a faint whinny from outside the door.

“Now.” Nyx began turning the pages of the book open on the desk in front of her, and continued speaking without looking up. “I suppose the obvious question to start with is whether we’re all on the same page here.”

“Yes.” Leo had hauled himself to his feet, and now stood rigidly before her desk. Behind his back, Kamui could see him clasping and unclasping his fingers, over and over. “Well. My retainer hasn’t actually been to the place yet, but he’s seen the first half of the vision in Azura’s crystal.”

Nyx looked up, briefly, at Odin; maybe Kamui had imagined it, but there was a flicker of something almost like recognition in her eyes. It was only there for a moment, before she turned back to her reading. “So regarding Gunter’s situation. You mentioned that you weren’t certain whether he was living or dead, child?”

“Kamui has reason to believe that he’s alive, but we figured we should get a second opinion,” Leo explained. “Besides which, if he is yet living, I daresay you have a better idea as to what might be done for him than we do.”

Nyx lifted her head again slightly, to regard Kamui from beneath an imperiously-raised eyebrow. “And this is the Lady Kamui, as I take it?”

“Oh - er - yes.” Kamui took a jumping step forward, and dropped into a bow, after the Hoshidan style; she wasn’t sure what the correct etiquette was here, but figured that if she was going to get it wrong, she may as well get it wrong in a way that was still respectful. “I-I’m so sorry to bother you at work, Professor Nyx.”

“Professor indeed!” She made a strange chirping sound that might have been a laugh. Kamui felt a stinging pulse across her chest, as it struck her that it hadn't been the right title to use, before Nyx continued. “Refreshing to see a child show her elders a proper level of deference, for once. You raised her well, Gunter.”

“Don’t say that to her face,” he cautioned. “She’ll get a swelled head.”

“So what was it that left you so convinced that he’s alive?” Nyx asked.

Kamui gave a brief summary of her vision during the battle with King Garon; Nyx spurred her through it with a series of quick, sharp nods. When she was done, Nyx was silent for a long moment.

“And you want my opinion on this?” she said slowly.

“Please,” nodded Kamui.

“Very well. My opinion is that you’re both being sentimental ninnies,” Nyx pronounced flatly. “There are a number of reasons why that doesn’t hold up as evidence that he’s alive; but I’ll not go into them now.”

Kamui winced, and Leo began stimming his hands more rapidly.

“Yes, we had a feeling that might be the case,” he said, his voice deceptively calm.

“I’m not done,” Nyx continued. “Fortunately for you, I could tell the minute he came in that he’s alive; unfortunately for you, I’m basing that assumption on far simpler evidence, and the fact that neither of you picked up on it is frankly worrying.”

“Enlighten us?” asked Leo.

“His breathing,” she said simply.

“That… doesn’t prove anything,” Leo objected. “My father was still breathing, too. Quite loudly, in fact; it used to get on my nerves a little during mealtimes.”

She shook her head. “And that’s my point exactly. Gunter’s breathing is less exaggerated than most puppets’; it’s an instinctive action, rather than a forced one. This suggests that he still has some control over his motor functions, at the very least.”

“So we did the right thing in keeping him alive?” Kamui nearly laughed with relief.

“I should say so,” Nyx agreed. “If the death of King Garon is any indicator, killing a living puppet does no damage to the wyrm, and makes it easier for him to control the puppet, to boot. Put that down, Odin.”

Odin had been examining the various stones and skulls laid out on one of her shelves behind them; he started back with his hands raised.

“You call me by name, when fate has never placed me before you until this moment? Is word of my grand exploits this far-reaching?” he asked, through a brave smile.

“No, I’m just omniscient,” said Nyx drily. “You know, it’s a little-known fact, but the staff members here do talk to each other on occasion. And sometimes we ask each other questions, like ‘who graffitied the bathroom wall with a 12-stanza chivalric ballad?’ Or ‘why does the window in the astronomy tower have a hole burned through the glass in the shape of a hand?’ Or -”

“I said I was sorry,” Odin protested, in a decidedly less dramatic tone than the one he normally used. “And the window thing was an experiment.”

“I’d be more inclined to believe that if it wasn’t the excuse all our students use for everything,” said Nyx sternly; but underneath, there was a faint quiver of amusement in her voice.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’ve graduated already, so technically you can’t get into trouble for all that anymore,” Leo pointed out, in a reassuring whisper. Odin perked up a little.

Nyx made a sound that could equally have passed for a tut or a snort. “Anyway, going back to Gunter.”

“You know, killing me may still be your best course of action regardless,” he volunteered. “He can still see into my mind, remember. He’s eavesdropping on this conversation, even now.”

“Good point. Odin, would you be so kind as to lead Gunter from the room?” Nyx phrased it as a question, but pronounced it as an instruction. “Show him the library, or something. And make sure that horse is behaving himself.”

“I guarantee he isn’t,” said Leo flatly. Odin and Gunter warped away, and the three of them were left alone.

“Now, then,” Nyx began, then paused. “We should sit.”

Next thing Kamui knew, they had fallen into a couple of armchairs, upholstered in balding velvet, nestled in a far corner of the office. Rather, Kamui and Nyx had warped into the chairs; Leo had landed indelicately on a rather uncomfortable-looking stool beside them. It was much too low for him, and his knees were roughly level with his chest, in a way that made him look like a frog.

“Tea?” Nyx asked, indicating the tray on the low table in front of them.

“No thanks!” they both said, very quickly. She shrugged, and set about pouring herself a cup by hand. Up close, it was easier to see why someone might take her for a child: she was perhaps slightly shorter than Sakura, and behind the veil, her face was smooth and girlish.

“So… if what Gunter said is true, Anan… er, can we say his name?” Kamui asked.

“I’m not sure,” Nyx admitted. “I’ve never tried it, myself. Best not to risk it, I’d say.”

“Okay. Gunter said that… the dragon… is dying, and trying to find a new body that can support him permanently,” she ventured. “So wouldn’t the most sensible thing be to go and kill him while he’s on his last legs anyway?”

“Theoretically, yes,” said Nyx. “But in practice, we’re talking about one of the First Dragons. Even if his life force is depleted, you’d still need a weapon capable of piercing his hide in the first place.”

“Like a wyrmslayer,” muttered Leo. Kamui shuddered, as she remembered the vision Azura’s crystal had shown them.

But Nyx shook her head. “No, I’ve been reading up on this extensively in case he ever did rear his head again. Wyrmslayers are effective enough against wyverns and younger manaketes - garden-variety dragons, if you will.” (Kamui had to chuckle quietly at that description of herself.) “But the only weapon capable of slaying a god is the Fire Emblem.”

“The Fire Emblem?” Leo frowned. “I thought that was a shield.”

“Accounts vary. In most of the Archanean sagas, the Emblem takes the form of a shield; but a few of the books I’ve read on the First Dragons make mention of it as a sword.”

“A sword?” Kamui’s mind was racing. “It… wouldn't happen to be anything like the Seal of Flames, would it?”

“That means exactly the same thing,” said Nyx flatly.

“But then we already have it!” Kamui cried, triumphantly drawing the Yato from its scabbard on her hip. Leo and Nyx both flinched back from it. “ _My_ sword is the Seal of Flames!”

“Wonderful,” Leo cringed; he had his hands raised in surrender. “Now, if you could stop waving it about in an enclosed space…”

“Ha, sorry.” Kamui sheathed it again. “So should we go and defeat him in the morning, or do we have time to do it before dinner?”

 

* * *

 

“So, do you have any ideas as to what our first plan of attack should be?”

Hinoka had meant to ask the question in her best Respected General voice, but since they had made the mistake of trying to tackle the stairs immediately after a large lunch, it came out as more of a nauseated groan.

Orochi considered this for a moment, tapping her chin with a manicured talon. “Well, ironically enough, if it’s another diviner tampering with my craft, scrying’s probably the only way to work out who’s doing it.”

Hinoka frowned. “Are there… many people who’d try to do that?”

“To me? Gods yes,” Orochi grinned. “Even setting aside the ones who have a beef with the royal family in general, I’ve rubbed quite a few mages the wrong way over the years.”

“You almost sound proud of it,” Hinoka noted.

“It’s good to make a few enemies here and there. Means people are taking you seriously.” Orochi cackled to herself quietly, in a way that gave Hinoka the distinct impression that _a few_ was an understatement.

“So I guess you want to investigate all of them?” Please say no, Hinoka mentally added; much as it was nice to feel useful again, gods only knew how long it would take to round up that many mages, and if Orochi’s visions _did_ signify something darker than a petty sabotage, then they were working to a very tight schedule here.

Orochi promptly exploded. Shiro laughed as well, just because she was laughing, mimicking the sound almost exactly; it definitely wasn’t the sort of noise anyone wanted to hear coming out of a baby.

“Take that as a no, then.”

“N-no, no need for that,” gasped Orochi, wiping away a tear. “No, I was actually working up to that. If it’s another person blocking me, I can’t scry them; but that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t be able to.”

Hinoka’s eyes narrowed; she had a feeling she knew where this was going. “So you’re saying…”

“Hinoka, how would you feel about a little road trip?” Orochi asked sweetly. “We could bring Sakura, it could be like a sisters’ bonding thing. No boys allowed,” she added, with a wink.

“You want to go to Izumo, don’t you?” Hinoka ventured, dubiously. A nightmare image flashed through her mind of being trapped at one of Duke Izana’s infamous week-long parties. The man himself had helped them out a lot during the war, though, and he wasn’t a bad guy. Besides, the change of scene would be good for her; staring at the same walls and streets every day was probably a large part of why she was feeling the way she had been lately. “Guess we’d better go get Takumi to make the arrangements, then, huh?”

As the commander-in-chief of Hoshido’s army, Hinoka technically had the authority to file the documentation of their leaving the country herself, but her head for paperwork was perhaps slightly worse than her head for politics. And, truth be told, she was still pretty curious as to what business had brought Shura north.

They headed up to Takumi’s office, nobly enduring the five storeys’ worth of stairs in stoic silence (aside from one point, halfway up the third flight, where Hinoka asked Orochi if this was how it felt to be pregnant, which elicited another gale of eerily-echoed laughter). The door was ajar when they arrived, and a faint hum of conversation could be heard from within.

Hinoka turned to Orochi. “Guess he’s not done talking with Shura. Should we come back later, or - ?”

She was cut off as the door opened properly, and Takumi emerged.

“Okay, do you want me to send for wagashi while I’m at it?” he called behind him.

“Whatever you’re having.” You could practically _hear_ Shura’s shrug.

“Ha, dorayaki it is, then.” Takumi turned, and let out a half-stifled yelp as he almost crashed into Hinoka.

“Whoa, are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine. But knock next time, geez,” he huffed. His face softened the second he glanced over her shoulder. “Heya, Shiro!”

Shiro gleefully reached out a pair of starfish hands to him. Takumi gave him a finger to grip in each fist, and led them up and down in a silly waving dance, which the baby seemed to think was the most hilarious thing in the world. When he spoke again, it was in the same upbeat tone he always used around his nephews. “Anyway, did you need something, or were you just waiting out here to give me a heart attack?”

“Yeah, we were going to pester you about a trip we’re planning. But we can come back later, if you’re busy.”

Takumi gave her an odd look, having fallen into a contemplative silence. “Actually, this works out pretty well for us. We needed to ask the two of you for a favour anyway.”

“Oho, well aren’t we popular today,” cackled Orochi, nudging Hinoka. “What is it you want done, and how much is it worth to you?”

She had obviously meant it as a joke, but Takumi’s face was deadly serious. “You’ll probably want to do this pro bono once you hear the details. I’d… prefer not to discuss it in the hallway, though.”

He waved them into his office. Hinoka had only been in here a handful of times. It was an airy sort of space, with a wide window overlooking the groves of coppery trees far below, furnished in light woods and muted greens. Well, _furnished_ was perhaps an exaggeration: aside from a few shelves lined with books and scrolls, the only other furniture in the room was a large, heavy desk, flanked by two chairs. It was definitely big enough for two people to sit at comfortably, but curiously enough, both Takumi and Shura had chosen to ignore it in favour of spreading a patchwork of papers out on the floor.

Shura himself was kneeling over these notes when they came in; he stood up when he heard them, only to drop to his knees again in a low bow. “Queen Orochi, Princess Hinoka. You honour me with your presence.”

“You’re not _that_ far below us, Shura,” Orochi pointed out, as she picked her way gingerly to a patch of bare floor in the middle of the papers, and arranged herself, cross-legged, opposite him. He flashed a crooked smile at Shiro, who answered it with a hearty greeting in a language none of them spoke.

It struck Hinoka that, depending on how you looked at it, Shura might actually be almost their equal: where her family had been chosen as leaders by the Dawn Dragon, Shura had been chosen by his own people. The ability to command that kind of respect was nothing to be sneezed at; as a general, Hinoka could personally vouch for that.

“Old habits die hard,” said Shura ruefully. “I suppose they’re here to join us in the raid, right?”

“Raid?” Hinoka felt herself frown. “Is there some kind of criminal activity going on in the city that I wasn’t aware of?”

“It’s not the kind of thing you’d come across in your patrols. Anyway, the incident took place while you were off-duty.” Takumi swallowed audibly. On his lap, his hands were clenched around fistfuls of his hakama. “Hinoka, we think we may have found the culprit behind the explosion in the square. And… Mother’s murder.”

Hinoka found her mind running in several directions at once.

“B-but…” She cleared her throat, mostly as an excuse to thump away the frantic flapping in her chest. “I thought King Garon was the one behind that attack?”

“So did I,” Takumi concurred. “At first. And it probably was him that _orchestrated_ it. But then, one day, it occurred to me that the other figure involved - that weird invisible samurai - couldn’t have been a Nohrian. If he was, he’d have lost the will to go through with the attack as soon as he passed through the barrier.”

“So King Garon had help from inside this city.” Orochi caught Hinoka’s eye. “Probably from a diviner.”

Hinoka gave her a brisk nod of comprehension.

Oblivious to this exchange, Takumi continued. “Exactly. And they’re still out there somewhere. Yukimura and I spent the past two years investigating it, but we weren’t getting anywhere. Until last autumn.”

“Which is where I come in,” said Shura. “See, the most likely suspect is a guy by the name of Kazama.”

“Kazama?” Orochi considered this a moment. “The name rings a bell.”

“He was the eldest son of one of the daijinke houses, and studied magic at Shirasagi Gakkō,” Takumi explained. “It’s possible you knew of him. Hinoka and I wouldn’t; his family were banished from court before I was born. Apparently they’d been embezzling funds from the treasury, dealing in opiates… just all sorts of dodgy stuff. As you’d expect, he ended up turning to organised crime after that.”

“Specifically,” put in Shura, who had begun rustling about the papers in search of a specific one, “he became the leader of the first band of outlaws I got in with, after Kouga fell.”

The page he was holding up was a yellowed guard report, illustrated with the faces of various criminals. A worrying number of them looked to be children; near the bottom of the roster was a hollow-eyed, half-starved boy, recognisable only by his name under his portrait, and his shock of white hair streaked with black. The man at the very top, labelled _Kazama_ , was the exact opposite of what Hinoka pictured when she imagined a bandit leader: he was a slender, proud-featured man, his long hair tied neatly back from his face, his jaw clean-shaven aside from a well-trimmed moustache. Where his underlings’ faces were all twisted in some combination of aggression and desperation, he smirked out from the page, a calculating smile of the sort a mouse sees on a cat; a smile that said _I could kill you right now, if I wanted, but I think I’d prefer to sit back and watch while this lot do it for me_.

Orochi gave a low whistle. “He’s a looker, I’ll give him that.”

“Bear in mind the poster’s twenty years old,” said Takumi, around the edges of a repressed snicker. “He’s probably got a gut and a receding hairline now.”

Hinoka was more concerned with the other inked faces glaring at her, though.

“Most of these guys look Nohrian,” she observed. Shura nodded.

“Ironically enough, it was in Nohr that I first joined up with him,” he explained. He had respectfully avoided eye contact for most of this conversation, but here she got the feeling he kept his gaze lowered out of genuine shame rather than propriety. “I knew what he was already; he was pretty famous by the time I was starting out in the business. But I… saw myself in him, I guess. I had been turned away from Hoshido’s borders to fend for myself, and so had he.” He grimaced, then. “With hindsight, that probably reflects pretty badly on the kind of kid I was. But when he asked me to join his gang, it was like…”

He cast about for a moment, probably trying to think of an analogy that a room full of royals would relate to. “Imagine the person you look up to most in the world comes to you, and tells you they want to keep you by their side, and train you to be like them. That was what it was like.”

A sad half-smile flickered over Orochi’s face at that; she wouldn’t have to _imagine_ it at all, Hinoka realised with a rush of affection.

“So how did you end up falling out?” Hinoka interjected, and immediately wished she hadn’t; his already rueful expression twisted into something still more bitter.

“It was over a job,” he said simply. “We’d done some pretty sick things before that, and for way less money, but this… this was different. I don’t even want to think about it.” He paused, with a sigh. “I want to say I left him when he took the job. I stood up to him, fought him even, and he cast me out and left me for dead. But no. I went along with it, helped him do this thing. I told myself it was what I had to do to stay alive. I didn’t gather up the courage to get out of there until the damage was already done.”

Once his story was concluded, he fell silent. Hinoka was left with the feeling that she ought to say something, but without knowing the specifics of his crime, it was difficult to string the words together.

“Shura…” she began, awkwardly. He shook his head before she could get any further than that.

“I’m honoured that you’d want to, but please don’t try to absolve me of this, Lady Hinoka,” he insisted. “It’s better that I continue to carry this burden with me. As a reminder.”

Hinoka had no answer to those words; she’d said them herself, just a few years ago. Instead she held fast to the stoicism that had prompted them back then.

“So going back to this Kazama’s connection to… Mother’s death,” she said, all militaristic briskness.

“Right, yeah,” Takumi said quickly, probably grateful to get the conversation back on track; Hinoka was probably the only one to notice, but his silence throughout this conversation had been a decidedly uncomfortable one. “There are a few eyewitness reports here… _somewhere_ ,” (he paused to scan the ground for them, before continuing with a defeated shrug) “- that claim that he was sighted in the capital a few weeks before the attack.”

Hinoka frowned. “A few _weeks_ before?”

“No, that does check out,” Orochi nodded. “He could have been laying the groundwork for the attack then. If the figure you saw was some kind of Faceless or illusion, it would be very easy to put it in place before it was needed, and keep it lying dormant there until then.”

“Okay. Do you know where he went after that?”

“I didn’t, until today,” said Takumi. This time, the paper he wanted was on hand immediately: a map of the entire continent, dotted with a crop of little circles. “Shura has marked out the locations of all the places Kazama’s most likely to be based.”

“Bear in mind that we parted company almost twenty years ago,” Shura put in hastily. “So most of these are probably abandoned now. But hopefully it’s a starting point.”

“I put a couple of ninja on it, and they found evidence that one of the forts is currently being used by a gang of bandits. There’s no telling whether it’s Kazama’s band or just some squatters that came along later, but either way, I figured it was worth organising a raid.”

“So just in case it is Kazama, you want us there to capture and interrogate him?” Orochi sighed. “Sorry, Hinoka, guess we’re going to be putting our vacation on hold.”

And there it was again, that heady brew of equal parts trepidation and exhilaration. If Hinoka had been anyone else, reacting that way to anything else, it would have left her voice as high and shaken as a blocked reed pipe; as it stood, she was a warrior, and spoke as calmly and resolutely as the steel she was about to take up again.

She took the map from Takumi. “So where are we headed?”

 

* * *

 

“If memory serves, his castle would be… _here_.”

Nyx set her quill down, and handed Kamui the map. It wasn’t very detailed: mostly, it was just a series of squiggly shapes, with a triangle near the top facetiously labelled _HERE BE DRAGONS_. Kamui supposed this was out of necessity; if the curse prevented crystal balls from showing visions related to Valla, it was very unlikely that Nyx would be able to draw a proper map of it.

“Are you sure this is accurate enough to use?” asked Leo dubiously. He had circled behind Kamui to look at it; their shoulders brushed when she turned to face him, which made him flinch a little. Gods, he really hated being touched, didn’t he?

“Probably not,” Nyx admitted. “As much as it’s a horrendous idea, you may have to bring Gunter with you.”

“Or we could just bring you,” Leo pointed out.

“You’re a prodigy, child,” said Nyx flatly. “I daresay this is a difficult concept for a king to grasp. But we normal folks, we have these things called ‘jobs’, you see, that make it rather difficult for us to go gallivanting off whenever we please, without telling our employers where we’re going.”

“All right, point taken,” Leo sighed. “We’ll try to work with just the map. Thank you for your time, Nyx.”

“Yes, thank you, Professor Nyx. It was lovely meeting you.” Kamui bowed to her again; she’d seemed to like that the first time.

Nyx made an amused little sound. “First time anyone’s ever said that to me. Now, if we’re quite finished here, I’ll fetch your friends back.”

She warped Gunter and Odin back in; they still looked a little disoriented, but this time, they managed to stay on their feet.

“I believe I also had a horse,” said Leo loftily.

“I believe the floor in here is carpeted,” Nyx countered.

“Has a verdict been reached, then?” asked Gunter.

“It has, but I’m afraid we can’t go into any details,” Nyx answered. “For your own safety, as much as anything else.”

He nodded solemnly, picking up the meaning of these words. “So I’m to be kept alive, then.”

Nyx’s eyes narrowed in what might even have been a smile. “We’ve mourned you one time too many already, my friend.”

“Incidentally, before we go, I was meaning to ask,” Leo interjected. “I don’t suppose you have a warp book you’d be willing to lend me?”

“Would I have wasted my time getting you a map if I did?”

He sighed. “Figured it was worth asking anyway. Thanks again for the advice, regardless.”

“You know, child, if you really want to thank me,” said Nyx slyly, “I wonder if we might finally discuss the matter of my proposed increases to the academy’s budget -”

Next thing Kamui knew, they were standing underneath the building again. The soil was icy under her toes after the warmth of Nyx’s carpeted floor.

“That wasn’t very kingly of you, Leo,” she said disapprovingly.

Leo shrugged. “Nyx knows I don’t yet have the funds to do as much for the academy as I intend to in the future. She mostly just says these things to bully me into leaving her alone.”

“If you say so.” She turned to Gunter; Leo had warped him onto Nosferatu’s back, but not quite into a comfortable sitting position, and he was doing an awkward sort of shuffle in the saddle. “Did you two have fun without us?”

“Indeed yes!” bellowed Odin. “Our first stop on Odin Dark’s Magical Mystery Tour was the gallery of statues -”

“Yes, you told me all their names,” Gunter added, with an inscrutable expression. “Most of them were rather long names.”

“And once we had paid homage to every petrified archmage, we went our ways to the alchemy laboratory -”

“And were immediately asked to leave. You never did explain why, exactly.” said Gunter suspiciously.

“And, at Sir Gunter’s request, I was showing him around the Haven of the Eldritch Grimoires when the Guardian of the Cursed Gold summoned us again to her inner sanctum,” Odin concluded.

“I’m sorry not to have joined you,” said Leo.

“You’d have got more out of it than I did, I think,” Gunter agreed. When Kamui was a child, he had occasionally told her stories of his time at the Knight Academy; from what she’d gathered, there had always been something of a rivalry between the two schools.

“I daresay.” Leo was smiling that wistful half-smile again. “It’s just unfortunate that the war broke out when it did.”

“How so?” asked Kamui, tilting her head to the side. Leo made a strangled little sound.

“Ah! Lord Leo had made ready to take his place in those hallowed halls that winter, but the war smote his academic ambitions when -”

“You know, I’d prefer not to discuss it,” Leo interrupted brusquely. “I would also prefer to get back while the rest of the household is still awake this time, so if we could start walking?”

As they set out, the conversation turned to more upbeat topics, but Kamui was only following it with half an ear. She spent most of the walk ruminating over Odin’s words; what exactly had he meant by _that winter_? Well, she supposed that was a silly question: the only thing he could have meant was the winter that began in 1314, a few months after the war had started. But the war had broken out in late September, the earliest Leo could have applied to begin in the winter semester; if he’d meant to start school that academic year, why hadn’t he just made his application for the autumn term?

Kamui didn’t get the chance to enquire about it any further until after they’d made it back to the city centre. A halfhearted sleet had begun to drip down; after much casting about for a means of covering Gunter until it passed, Leo had steered them in the direction of the nearest shop: one of the new ones aboveground, it looked to be quite high-end, and boasted a glow through the leaded windows that spoke promisingly of a fire.

“In truth, this works out rather well for us,” he said brightly, as he helped Gunter shed his hooves and shepherded him inside. Kamui realised what he meant by that when her eyes fell on the sign hanging from a bracket by the door: _MADAM PERDITAX’S EMPORIUM OF SORCEROUS PARAPHERNALIA_.

“Well, if we’re going to find a warp book anywhere in the city…” Kamui almost chuckled.

“Exactly.”

Inside, the shop was quite large, and there were a few other people about. The far wall was lined with shelves full of pristine new spell tomes, but most of the shop floor was taken up with glass cabinets displaying all manner of tools, and stones, and jars containing things it really shouldn’t have been possible to trap in a jar.

Odin was uncharacteristically silent for a good half-minute, save for the slap of his hands clutching theatrically at his chest. He turned back to them slowly, openly gaping and with eyes practically sparkling.

“Milord…” he said, in an awed whisper.

“One thing,” Leo nodded; then, with a conspiratorial grin, “but don’t tell Niles and Laslow.”

Odin made a delighted little sound, blurted out something very hurried about Leo being the personification of generosity whose patronage would fund feats of heroism bards would sing of for aeons thereafter, and made a beeline for the display of skulls in a far corner. Leo watched him with an indulgent smile, and then strode off to inspect the bookshelves, while Gunter went to make a show of browsing the shelves nearest the fire.

In all honesty, Kamui could have entertained herself for hours just watching the people coming in and going out. Most of them looked to be fairly well-to-do, but they ran the gamut from gangly teenagers in the Mage Academy’s uniform, to ringleted ladies in lace-trimmed pelisses, to a bearded old man wrapped in so many black furs that Kamui took him for a bear at first. The counter was staffed by a big, bosomy woman with similar quantities of very red hair, in a black velvet dress of the sort Camilla had used to wear; Kamui supposed this would be Madam Perditax.

She was also giving Kamui a very odd look. It took Kamui a minute to realise that she had been standing in the doorway staring at people for several minutes; when it did, her stomach gave a lurch of embarrassment, and she scurried off to bury herself in whichever corner would best hide her face until it was less red.

“Lady Kamui.” She almost jumped at the sudden sound; when she turned around, Odin was holding up a skull about the size of a pumpkin, labelled _JUVENILE WYVERN, 500G._ “Behold the ancient familiar of Odin Dark! My bond of fellowship with him shall rival even Minerva’s with her chosen one.”

“Oh, yes. He’s… lovely,” nodded Kamui, trying hard not to think about whether her own skull would look like that, if she died in dragon form. “What are you going to, er, name him?”

Odin somehow managed to beam even wider at that. “I’m very glad you asked! Many epithets whisper to me in the recesses of my mind, but there are three that announce themselves much the louder: Chrysophlax Bellwether’s-Bane! Durnehviir the Undying! And Arthentine of the Gloaming Forest!”

“I like the third one,” said Kamui, after some thought. “You could shorten it to ‘Forest’. It’s cute.”

“So be it,” he exulted. “Arthentine of the Gloaming Forest, accept now your sobriquet, chosen by the Grey Pilgrim! You have my thanks, Lady Kamui.”

“Er, no problem.” This Odin fellow was a colourful character, but no more so than most of Kamui’s other friends, she supposed.

She spent a few more minutes looking at the wyvern skulls, inspecting their cruel, curved fangs with a mix of unease and, oddly enough, envy, before it occurred to her that Odin and Leo were no longer within earshot of each other. Even when it did, Kamui wasn’t certain whether to make use of the opportunity: whatever the business with Leo’s academy application was, he really hadn’t wanted to discuss it. If it was a sore spot for him, it would be wrong of her to poke at it; but if the sore spot was an open wound still, it did not sit right with her to leave it festering.

And, more to the point, she was unbearably curious.

“Odin, I have a question,” Kamui began hesitantly.

“Ah! By all means, allow humble Odin to offer his dark counsel.”

“It’s not really advice I’m after,” she shrugged. “Just information. You said before that Leo had hoped to attend the Mage Academy the winter after the war broke out?”

“Aye, and he did,” Odin remarked brightly. “The archmages had sought his presence for many a year; but when at last he put his name to their dark contract, fate drew him back forever from the path he had so yearned to follow. A tragic turn of events, truly.”

Kamui felt a frown coming, which she struggled to bite back; if it became obvious that they were discussing too serious a subject, she ran the risk of drawing Leo’s attention. “But why the winter semester, though? I’m guessing he didn’t apply during the campaign?”

Odin looked downright bewildered. “No indeed! Milord would never abandon his people to torment and death; not even to arrive at the eleventh hour, wielding a magical might far beyond that which -” (he caught himself mid-tangent this time, and cleared his throat awkwardly) “No. He had been delaying his application for years, but when King Garon gave his consent for you to leave the -”

“You two seem to be doing rather a lot of whispering.” They both jumped, and turned to Leo; he was standing close behind them, with the most wicked grin Kamui had ever seen. “Not hatching any plot more sinister than an attack on my purse, I hope?”

“Milord! You have brought a prophet unto us!” Odin cried, without missing a beat. “Behold! Arthentine of the Gloaming Forest, thus named by the Lady Kamui! CanIgetitcanIgetitpleasepleasepleaseIknowit’skindofexpensivebutitcancomeoutofmywages -”

Leo rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “If you must. That’s your entire solstice present, though.”

“Thank you, milord!” Odin dashed off to the counter.

“Thanks for indulging him. He can be a bit much at times, but he’s a good servant,” said Leo, in a tone that suggested that he was using _servant_ where he meant to say _friend_.

Kamui had still been processing the implication of Odin’s words; now that she understood them, she wasn’t quite sure how to react. The Mage Academy was everything Leo had ever wanted for himself, the only thing he’d ever wanted for himself - and yet he had set that dream aside, until it was lost to him forever, in order to continue visiting her in the fortress. The guilt Kamui felt now was no stranger to her, but never had she felt such pity for anyone before. She found herself seized with a powerful urge to pull him into a bear-hug there and then, this brilliant idiot; but if she did, he would guess that Odin had told her.

Besides, they were in public.

“He’s a laugh,” she said, instead. “Any luck with the warp book?”

“Sadly not,” Leo grimaced. “I couldn’t find one on the shelves, so I went and asked the proprietor of the shop directly if they had one in stock. She told me that they don’t deal in that sort of thing here, and that I’d probably have to get one of the merchants down in Macarath to order it in from overseas.” He paused. “Well. That’s what she said eventually. For the first minute or so, she just sort of looked at me like I’d drooled down my front. It was very impolite; I was tempted to take my glove off there and then.”

“To show her your seal, or to challenge her?”

“Yes,” he said drily.

Kamui chuckled. “Well, it was worth a shot. Guess we’re taking the scenic route again, then. At least this will be the last time.”

“Gods, don’t say that. You’ll jinx it,” said Leo wryly. “Anyway, it looks like the snow’s going off. You may as well pick something out for yourself, since I’m getting Odin his skull anyway.”

Kamui let her gaze move again over the sickly hollows in Leo’s cheeks, and the shadows beneath his eyes. In this moment, she mused ruefully, all she really wanted was for him to start taking care of himself.

“I don’t want anything for me. But… we should probably stock up on staves, if this place sells them,” she mused instead. Leo had studied the basics of healing magic, she knew, and she herself had picked up a few things from Sakura. “Hopefully it won’t come to that, but…”

“It’s better to have them on hand than not,” Leo agreed. “Healing staves. And elixirs, while we’re at it. Anything else?”

A thought occurred to Kamui just then; she turned back to the shelf, and picked out the fiercest-looking, most dragonlike wyvern skull she could find.

“Get this for Shigure,” she said slyly, “and we’ll be his favourite aunt and uncle forever.”

“And people say I’m the conniving one,” Leo snorted. Kamui wondered at that a little: despite everything, his laughter was always genuine. Even if it was just a coping mechanism, he still found it in him to crack jokes, and to laugh at other people’s.

Well, she mused brightly, her heart light against the soft thrum of the two glowing stones under her hakamashita, if someone as highly-strung and cynical as Leo could manage that, there was hope for Kamui yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a new main character! *Item Get jingle plays*  
> Heh, yeah, this fic's still mainly going to focus on Leo and Kamui (by which I mean they still get at least one shippy interaction per chapter, because I am The Worst Trash™), but Hinoka's going to be pottering about in the background quite a bit. She's very different to the sort of character I usually write (read: Leo), so if she seems ooc to you, let me know and I'll try to rectify that in future scenes from her POV. I love her and writing her, though, so that's half the battle really :D
> 
> \- “Pochi” is a generic name for a dog. It doesn’t really mean anything; it’s sort of the Japanese equivalent of “Fido”.
> 
> \- My headcanon is that Hinoka is a year older than Kamui (well, I say “headcanon”, I mean “Hinoka was flat-out stated to be 7 when Kamui was abducted, and if that happened any earlier than Leo’s fifth year, it’s unlikely he’d still be able to remember pre-Anankos Garon as clearly as he can, ergo there’s quite a narrow window there”), so she’d be 26 in 1319. Azama and Setsuna started serving her in 1307, a year I chose because it seemed fitting to have the Sky Knights end their apprenticeships at around the same age Nohrian pages graduate to squirehood, but funnily enough, this was also the same year Leo hired Niles. Huh.
> 
> \- Odin was able to use Azura’s crystal back in chapter 1 because he’s a descendant of Naga’s. Based on the fact that Niles and Laslow can't, Leo just assumes the crystal is something you have to be a mage to use (since Kamui has a basic grounding in magic as well); if he’d stuck to his old swordmaster class, he’d find himself on the receiving end of rather more Inconvenient Questions.
> 
> \- The game mentions that the Awakening trio all attended the academies. It struck me as a little sad that Odin, as a mage, would end up on his own at the Mage Academy while the other two went to the Knight Academy together, so I tried to make it the kind of place that would appeal to the dark fancies swirling within his mind, driven by the pulsations of his raging blood - y’know, stuff he could use to keep himself busy with until they met up again at the castle.
> 
> \- Hinoka’s quarter-life crisis is another of those things I really wish the game had addressed. It’s not that she wouldn’t be capable of studying politics like Takumi does (actually, given that her social anxiety is less severe than his, she might actually be better at it); she’s just spent her entire life overspecialising in her combat training, for the sole purpose of rescuing Kamui. That's all she knows. So now that Kamui is part of her life again, and her naginata skills aren’t really needed for anything else… yeah, she’s going to need some time to work out what to do with herself now. Hang in there, Hinoka!
> 
> \- If Shura’s out of character, it’s because there’s a limit to how much of his personality I could glean from his one (1) support and the few cutscenes he appears in. He’s another character Intsys did so dirty; imagine if he’d had the option to support with Saizou, or Ryouma, or Azura. LET HIM HAVE SOME FRIENDS, INTSYS
> 
> \- Kazama, according to some sources, was the original given name of Fuuma Kotarou. Considering which character is named after him in canon, I figured it was a better namesake for Shura’s old boss than my first choice: in my initial drafts, his name was going to be Hanzomēn (say it out loud a few times), but I figured maybe that was too silly even for me.
> 
> \- I won’t go into all the intricacies of the kuge, because among other things, the terminology and setup varied throughout history anyway. But basically, in the 1310s, the daijinke class was the exact middle rank in the Japanese aristocracy. They were eligible for certain ministerial positions in the government, but not any of the big, important ones.
> 
> \- First person to correctly pinpoint all the shameless references to better works of fiction in this chapter wins an imaginary medal.


	10. So Far Away and So Near

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kamui and Leo did not get the memo that Fire Emblem games are not open-world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: mild gore. And it's probably obvious, but from this chapter onwards it's going to be, like, The Mother Of All Revelation Spoilers, so if you've not played that route yet you'd probably better go do that first.  
> And I’m a woman of my word, so: actually, Xay wrote this chapter.

 

> _“Accounts differ regarding the origins of Odin Dark. No records exist of his birth or parentage; indeed the earliest proof of his existence is the documentation of his enrolment at the Mage Academy’s university division, in the semester beginning in January 1311. Most historians explain this away by maintaining that he began life as a second-class citizen hailing from one of the occupied territories (usually Cheve); a few others claim that he was from elsewhere, perhaps overseas (an assertion that is usually disputed by the fact that there should then be a record of his having arrived in the country, unless he was a stowaway). For my part, I feel that there are flaws in both hypotheses, and that one would do well to remember the role he played in the events that unfolded in the winter of 1319.”_
> 
> \- From an unfinished manuscript by Princess Alruna, written around the same time as _The Sorcerous King_ ; she had meant to write an entire biography on Odin Dark, but these plans had never come to anything, owing to both her own death and a lack of reliable primary sources to work with. Many of the princess’s unfinished writings survived, and while these were never published (due to a stipulation in her will, where she stresses that she does not consent to the publication by “that awful brother of mine” of any works she has not clearly marked as approved for print), they are kept in the archives of Castle Krakenburg and frequently cited as sources in the works of more fortunate historians.

 

“Well, here we are again.”

Leo nodded ruefully. “It’s always such a pleasure.”

They had landed rather less elegantly than he’d have liked: since it was too much of a risk to try using his gravity-manipulation spell on three people without having tested it first, they’d had to grit their teeth and jump down at full speed. It had easily been the most terrifying moment of Leo’s life; even now, his nerves were a poisonous tangle, his head a vortex of migraine-fuelled lights and ringing. Still, Kamui seemed to have landed safely, and Leo had somehow managed not to bruise anything besides his dignity.

They sat up, side by side, in the grass, looking out over the corkscrew hills and silver forests that lay ahead. None of it looked anything like the map Nyx had drawn, but a trapezoidal shape that might have been her inked triangle of a castle could be made out as a faint brown silhouette on the horizon. Leo had been about to point it out to Kamui, but he was interrupted before he’d begun by a burst of noise and dull pain as Odin came crashing down from the sky.

“Lord Leo!” he cried jubilantly. “Did you wait in these depths to catch me as I fell?”

“Mrfl,” said Leo; a word which roughly translated to “get your elbow out of my mouth”.

Odin removed the offending appendage (leaving Leo to inspect his teeth for any damage), and sat up to survey their surroundings. For once, he didn’t seem to want to wax lyrical about what he was seeing; the grim silence he favoured instead was downright unsettling coming from him.

Kamui must have thought as much, too. “Something the matter?”

Odin blinked owlishly at them for a moment. “Ah - not hardly, Lady Kamui! No, I was only taking a moment to quell the raging of my mythic blood!”

“Okay, glad to hear it,” she said diplomatically. She rose to her feet, and extended a hand to Leo (which he accepted with a downright _stupid_ sort of internal fluttering). “I think the castle’s over that way. There’s a kind of pyramid-looking thing…”

“Yes, I see it. Due, er…” Leo floundered for a moment, wondering whether Valla had a north and a south, and if so, which way they were facing now. Eventually he settled on, “forwards-by-left. It’s probably going to be a fair hike.”

“Have no fear on that count. Humble Odin is a natural sprinter!”

“If you tire out, my offer to carry you still stands,” Kamui added, with a downright evil grin.

“We’re not doing that bit again,” said Leo flatly.

Once they’d set out, though, he found himself rather wishing that she would; there was only so much physical activity he could engage in before his body started protesting that walking was for peasants. His dire-wolf overcoat, heavy at the best of times, weighed crushingly on his shoulders, and the heat it smothered him in was suffocating. Kamui shot the occasional concerned glance back at him, but, to her credit, refrained from drawing attention to his plight this time.

“So this is your first trip to Valla, huh?” she said instead, to Odin.

He paused for a moment, probably to catch his breath: he was holding up better than Leo, but when it got right down to it, neither man led a particularly athletic lifestyle. “Never had I thus flown over the edge of the world, to be sure! Odin Dark commands mastery over all other things, but the forces of gravity are the province of his ailing king alone.”

“I’m not ailing,” Leo protested. “I’m holding up just fine, thank you very much.”

Oh, he was definitely ailing. He could feel the ruddy burning in his cheeks, even under the chill of his sweat, and while he was past the point where he could hear his own breathing beyond the ringing in his ears, he imagined it must be very loud, and quite ragged. It all made him extremely uneasy: if they were ambushed now, he’d be nothing short of a liability. But still he persisted, cycling his leaden feet mechanically over the ground and cursing that Kamui should see him in this state.

For her part, she showed no sign of any weariness at all. She darted through the spiralling copses of nameless trees several paces ahead of Leo and Odin, only stopping occasionally to look back and wait for them to catch up. Leo might have been vexed by his struggle to keep up with her, if it hadn’t been quite so aesthetically pleasing to watch her go; to admire the lightness of her bare feet, the swift grace of her movements, the muscularity of her frame. She was like a valkyrie out of the sagas, or a knight-errant out of a chivalric romance.

Or, hissed a callous little voice at the back of Leo’s mind, like a queen.

He silenced that thought with a vigorous shake of his head. There was no way of telling day from night in this place, but he grudgingly supposed that he was overtired. And people thought, and said, dreadful things when they were overtired.

“I think we should stop here for the evening,” he announced.

Kamui looked back at him, head tilted in a kind of amused confusion. “Is it evening?”

“Kamui, I’m the king,” he asserted loftily. “If I say it’s evening, it’s evening.”

“I don’t think that’s how time works,” she countered, in a tone that was trying to be deadpan but crackled with the hint of a snicker. “Otherwise we’d never have summer again.”

“You say that like the prospect isn’t idyllic.”

They made their camp under the shade of a tree whose size declared it to be just a few years shy of ancient, and whose leaves were a peculiar bluish-green. This time, at least, they’d had the foresight to pack proper rations. They supped on waybread, layered with hard cheese and ringed slices of red onion. It would make their sweat a little fragrant when they resumed their hike again; but it tasted good, and by all the gods, Leo was too hungry to care about anything beyond that now.

“Sho,” Kamui began, from around a mouthful of bread; she paused to swallow it down before continuing. “So. What’s our plan of attack for tomorrow? Er, whenever that is.” She shot Leo a grin that would have been unbearably charming, if not for the shred of onion-skin stuck between her front teeth.

It was a question Leo had been quietly dreading ever since they’d set out. Under any other circumstances, he’d have delayed the expedition to formulate a proper strategy, but in this case, there was simply no way of doing so. When it got right down to it, the only resources they really had here were the Fire Emblem, Nyx’s badly-drawn map, and the vague knowledge that Anankos was a dragon. It was with this fact in mind that he responded.

“I don’t suppose we have the option of scouting ahead in this particular instance,” he remarked ruefully. “So there’s no way of knowing what the terrain’s going to be like. Or… how physically large our opponent’s going to be.”

Kamui let out a nervous laugh at that. “Gods, I hadn’t even thought of that! Suppose he’s as big as the one the Hero-King fought?”

“That’s precisely what I’m afraid of,” said Leo, without a hint of amusement. “If he’s closer in mass to a wyvern, I can probably restrain him with Brynhildr while you finish him off. If he’s nearer the size of Fort Dragonfall, well…” He trailed off with a grim shrug. “We run. Why, did you have an idea?”

“Not really; my plan was just ‘make a heroic speech and then charge’,” Kamui admitted sheepishly. “To be fair, that _has_ always worked for me before, though.”

“We’ll put a pin in that one then. Odin, do you have any suggestions?”

Odin opened his mouth, one finger raised.

“That don’t hinge on one of us rolling a natural twenty,” Leo stipulated hastily.

Odin closed his mouth.

Leo sighed. “It’s a work in progress. Look, I’ll take first watch tonight, I can think of someth -”

“Nope,” interrupted Kamui.

“Nope?”

“We both know what’s going to happen if you take first watch. You’ll force yourself to stay awake for a second watch and a third watch, and then you’ll be too tired to function in the morning,” said Kamui, annoyingly accurately.

“I think I can manage one all-nighter, Kamui,” Leo insisted, smoothly glossing over the fact that this one all-nighter would actually be the third in a row.

“There’s no coffee out here,” she pointed out.

“… Okay, so I’m not on first watch.”

Kamui laughed that snorting laugh again; it died away as Leo clapped his hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you for volunteering,” he said sweetly.

“I was about to anyway, jerk!” she cried, in a burst of mock indignation.

“Oh, sure,” Leo grinned. He had a very clever rebuttal thought out for that one, but he didn’t get any farther than the first two words before breaking off to dodge a flying onion.

 

* * *

 

Leo wasn’t sure what had woken him so abruptly, but once he was awake, there was no getting back to sleep.

Whatever it was, it hadn’t had any effect on the other two: by the sound of it, Odin was sawing logs on one side of him, and Kamui had nodded off at her post on the other, with her back against that old tree. Leo smiled fondly at that, and got up to give her shoulder a little shake.

“Kamui? Hey,” he whispered, lifting her chin with his free hand.

“Hmm?” Kamui did not open her eyes, but her head flopped to the side as if to tilt it questioningly. Leo had to fight the urge to laugh.

“Guess it’s my shift now, then. Come on.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders and guided her to her feet. Kamui let him lower her into his abandoned bedroll with a mumbled _mkay_ , and fell back into a deep sleep as soon as she hit the pillow. This time Leo did laugh, albeit quietly, as he spread his coat across her. He allowed himself a moment's pause to study her sleeping face: the fluttering of her eyelids, the smile dancing in the corner of her mouth, the slight parting of her lips -

Leo flung the thought from his head, and drew back from her with a shaky sigh: dwelling on the sight of Kamui’s lips was always dangerous, even if the soft breaths flowing from them were distinctly oniony.

Instead, he focussed his attentions on their surroundings. Contrary to what he had believed, there _was_ a difference between day and night in Valla: while he’d slept, the deep void the islands floated in had shaded from white to a stormy grey, and the little patches of firmament cast overhead were draped in violet-blue and shot with stars (although Leo didn’t recognise any of the constellations, and they were shepherded by at least three different moons). The darkness might have been comforting, had the night not been quite so still with it. There was no keening of wolves, no debate between owls; not even so much as a whisper of wind. That, to Leo, seemed more unsettling than anything else in this place: he knew Anankos had wiped out the human population of Valla, but the animals too?

Leo’s perseverations were interrupted, as the silence was finally broken - by the sound of rustling leaves somewhere deeper in the woods.

Brynhildr was open in his hand almost as soon as he’d heard it. Slowly, very slowly, he rose to his feet and stalked over in the direction of the noise. As he wove his way through ever denser knots of trees, he could make out a faint white light beyond them. More specifically, he could see it coming towards him.

Leo steeled himself, and readied his spell.

The rabbit hopped into view.

At least, it _looked_ like a rabbit: a small, long-eared creature, with soft, glowing silver fur and a twitching nose. It blinked its large red eyes up at him winsomely.

Leo rolled his eyes. “Announce yourself properly next time, if you please. Anyway, I’m guessing you smelled the onion.”

Normally he’d have baulked at the thought of wasting rations on a wild animal, but they had almost reached the castle; besides, the onions were one resource he could replace easily enough. He took one of the leftover ones from his bag, and held it out, bent at the waist to the rabbit’s eye level.

“Here you go,” he whispered. The scientist in him was already planning all the expeditions he’d make, once these lands were safe to wander alone, to properly study the flora and fauna here. Valla’s weather was a law of physics unto itself; possibly there were plants here that wouldn’t need sunlight to thrive. Possibly some were edible.

He felt giddy just thinking about it.

The rabbit looked at the onion, and then at Leo, as if to ask whether it was really allowed to take it. Leo nodded encouragingly.

The rabbit lunged for his throat.

Leo snarled a string of curses as he tore the rabbit from his collar; it came away with a sizeable scrap of wool caught in its decidedly carnivorous teeth. It snapped them at his hands now, in a bid to free itself. Leo shifted his grip to its throat, and primed himself to twist.

“Leo, what are you doing?”

Leo and the rabbit both whipped their heads around. Kamui was squinting at them through eyes still heavy with sleep.

“Kamui! Thank gods. This… _thing_ is trying to eat me,” Leo exploded.

She gave him an odd look.

“The rabbit is trying to eat you,” she said flatly. “Is this what all the screaming was about?”

“It’s not a rabbit. It’s… I don’t know what it is. - and I wasn’t screaming!” Leo protested. Taking advantage of the confusion in a way that, as a strategist, Leo really couldn’t fault it for, the rabbit turned its head and sank its teeth into the base of his thumb, far deeper than a rabbit ought to be able to. Rather than releasing its grip to bite again, though, it began to suck loudly. Kamui’s eyes snapped properly open at that.

“Oh, I see what you mean,” she mumbled.

“Yes, now if you could -”

She had already darted forward and wrenched the rabbit’s jaws off his hand before he could finish his sentence; the mark it left looked more like he’d been bitten by a baby wyvern than anything else. 

“Gods, that thing’s vicious,” he hissed, dabbing at the blood bubbling up through his leather gauntlet with a grimace (in truth, he didn’t say “gods”, but the word he used instead would look quite ugly in writing). “Are you all… right…?”

He trailed off, bemused by the strangeness of the scene: the animal’s aggression had melted away in Kamui’s grasp, and now it quailed from her with its ears drooping low.

“Bad bunny,” she chided gently, and set it down on the ground. It sped away as though its life depended on it.

Leo gawked at her with an incredulous half-laugh. “What did you do to it?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged; although the slight frown tugging at her brow suggested otherwise.

Leo mirrored it with a concerned one of his own. “Kamui?”

“Leo?” she mimicked, brightening. “Come on, we’d better get that bite seen to.”

Leo allowed himself to be led back to their erstwhile campsite, but as he sat back down in the hollow of the tree’s roots, he mentally resolved that this discussion wasn’t over.

“So what were you doing all the way out there anyway?” she asked, as she rummaged through her pack and produced a small jar of honey.

“I heard a noise. Which proved to be a horrifying leporine vampire that nearly took my arm off,” he remarked wryly.

Kamui chuckled. “I think you’re embellishing just a little. - now, off with that gauntlet.”

“Perhaps, but that’s the version we’re telling Odin.” Leo removed his gauntlet as instructed, wincing as the little edges of leather that had been pierced through into the wound peeled away from it. Kamui took his hand, and held it up to examine the bite marks; he prayed that his face didn’t look as red as it felt, or else that the light of three moons wasn’t bright enough to see it by.

“I’ve been teasing you, but this actually looks pretty bad,” Kamui conceded with a pained hiss through her teeth. “It didn’t bite you anywhere else, did it?”

“Yes, it bit through my jugular vein,” Leo couldn’t resist saying. “Tell Shigure to continue my life’s work.”

“Ha, if you’re well enough to make wisecracks, I’m not too worried,” Kamui countered, snickering. She set about spreading the honey over the wound; it didn’t sting as much as some other ointments would, but it still felt unpleasantly sticky. “There, that should prevent any infection. Now let me just dress this…”

In all honesty, the motion of wrapping the bandage around his hand was more soothing than the honey. Kamui’s hands were rough and calloused from years of gripping steel and reins and needles, but they moved over his with such light gentleness, that even the fit of ardour and embarrassment that had so agitated him earlier, was quelled into a soft glow of contentment. There was no urge to kiss her in that moment, nor any terror that she might realise he felt such urges; only a feeling of perfect calm, the like of which he had not felt since that last autumn in the fortress, nor expected to feel ever again.

And yet, he found he could not count himself happy; not until he knew that she was as well.

“It didn’t bite _you_ , though?” he tried. She shook her head. “Good, good. You looked a little distressed, so…”

Kamui tilted her head to the side, but it was a jerkier motion than usual, and her smile was a tight little slash that didn’t reach her eyes. “Did I? I mean, I guess I was pretty freaked out by the size of its teeth, but…”

“You always were a horrendous liar,” Leo remarked. “No, you seemed fine right up until the rabbit shrank away from -”

He broke off with a pained hiss, as she flinched with the end of the bandage still in her hand, yanking it too tight over his thumb. Kamui let out a horrified little yelp.

“Argh, sorry!” she grimaced, patting his hand gingerly, in the same way she would an injured sparrow. “I guess I don’t know my own strength. You okay?”

“I am. Are you?” he countered.

Kamui’s grip on his hand slackened, and fell away into a pair of white-knuckled fists pressed into her lap. She turned from him to press her back against the tree. Her face was veiled by her fringe, aside from the thin line of her mouth. She was trying to keep from crying, Leo realised with a surge of regret.

“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I won’t interrogate you about it. But… all our lives - whether or not you knew it - you’ve been the one who soothed, or cheered, or emboldened me, whenever the trials I had seen would otherwise have been too much to bear. If there is any means by which I can return the favour, I will; but as I say, if you’d prefer not to discuss it, we don’t have to.”

Kamui was silent for a long moment. Leo ran the words through his head again, frantically checking for any way of interpreting them that wasn’t platonic; it was only when he had fully convinced himself that he’d just let everything slip, and that now she was repulsed beyond words and would refuse to see him again, that she spoke.

“I think…” She paused again, probably trying to find the words. “I think it knew what I am.”

“How do you mean?” asked Leo, as delicately as he could.

Kamui gave a humourless laugh, a bitter shade of her usual chuckle. “I hardly know myself, honestly. I just… I feel like there’s this horrible vortex of rage and fear and chaos, swirling in my stomach, all the time. It’s always been there, but it’s gotten worse since the war. Usually I try to ignore it, but…”

She lifted her head to face him then. Her face bore an expression Leo had never in his life seen her make before: genuine fear. Not the mild, fleeting fright she’d taken whenever she saw a spider, or the first time she jumped down the canyon - this ran deeper, and colder. It was a fear that left her face void of its usual humour and her fists trembling against her knees.

“Occasionally, I feel the urge to… _do_ things. Like run away, or scream as loud as I can. Or break things.” She swallowed, and lowered her head again. “But I also have this feeling that if I ever act on those urges… I’ll never be able to go back to being myself again. I’ll just be this angry, paranoid shell forever. I don’t know if that makes sense or not,” she concluded, with a self-deprecating snort. “But I was afraid that maybe the rabbit sensed that in me. That… the damage is already done, and I’m just going to get worse and worse, until I’m -”

She cut herself off almost mid-word; her lips were slightly parted now, exposing the clenched teeth behind them.

Leo wasn’t really sure how to respond to any of that.

Kamui sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m probably not making a whole lot of sense right now.”

“That’s to be expected, though. Feelings like that are inherently nonsensical.” He let his hand hover over hers for a moment, before thinking better and withdrawing it again. “I’m not a physician. I don’t know if your… anxieties, for want of a better word, have the same root cause as mine. But I think if that hairy gremlin was reacting to their presence, it would have recoiled from me as well.”

Her head jerked up at that. “You’re not saying…”

He nodded. “I have a few different hypotheses for what causes mine. But if you of all people feel the same way, I think I can promote one to a theory.”

“Our dragon blood?” Kamui ventured. The desperation in her eyes was still there, but now something else flickered over them; something Leo couldn’t quite put a name to.

“Exactly. There is a history of mental instability in our - in my family that goes almost as far back as the line itself. I had wondered if it was a version of degeneration, softened by our human blood.” He grimaced, then. “Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I told myself as much, when I began to identify it in myself. But if such an affliction is present in the Dawn Dragon’s line as well, that all but confirms it.”

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of,” said Kamui quietly. Her head began to droop again. Instinctively, Leo reached out to lift it, to cradle the side of her face in his hand. The hitch of her breath at that was both sharp and very much audible; he expected her to flinch away from him, but instead she leaned slightly into his palm, staring questioningly at him.

“I wasn’t saying that to worry you,” he whispered. “Like I said, our human blood should soften its effects. Not that we should let our… less productive urges go unchecked; but remember that they are only urges. We have the option of exercising self-control, in a way the First Dragons didn’t.” If he could pass more than a decade restraining himself from her, a spot of screaming and throwing things barely seemed worth his time at all, he mentally added.

Kamui’s eyes closed; she pressed her cheek more heavily into his hand with a shaky sigh. “You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Leo laughed fondly. “What are you apologising for?”

Her eyes snapped open; she jerked away from him, horrified. His stomach gave a lurch of anxiety, until she cried: “For dumping all this baggage onto you when I was supposed to be binding your wound! Here, let’s see your hand again…”

This time, she was smiling as she secured and tied the bandage; an exhausted smile, but a smile nonetheless.

“That being said… thank you, Leo. It’s a relief to know that this is normal for people like us.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say ‘normal’,” he admitted. “I haven’t discussed it with anyone besides you.”

It was only after he’d said it that he realised it was probably what Camilla referred to as an Unhelpful Comment; he winced a little. But Kamui only laughed - her usual merry laugh. “Well, even if it’s not, at least we can both be nutjobs together now.”

The light and warmth had come back into her eyes now, and the patchwork of stars overhead spun a giddy reel across them. Again, Leo felt a notable lack of any desire to kiss her: he should not have liked to see those eyes close again. But it seemed that this was one sentiment Kamui wouldn’t be able to relate to; her eyelids had begun to grow heavy, her blinking slower and more laborious.

“Anyway, my apologies for waking you,” he said. “I’ll let you get back to that. You can’t slay a dragon on ten minutes’ sleep.”

“That sounds like it should be a proverb of some kind.” Kamui burrowed back down in the bedroll with a wicked grin. “Don’t you go picking fights with any more fluffy bunnies, now, okay?”

“I will make no such promises,” said Leo drily. Kamui made no rebuttal beyond a chuckle that faded into a soft hum. Peace settled over her face as she fell back to sleep.

Leo drew his coat about his shoulders; it felt churlish not to give it to Kamui again, but she had a fur-lined bedroll where all he had was a partially-shredded sweater. Besides, it still smelled faintly of her, he mused (wilfully disregarding the fact that, tonight, Kamui’s gentle hands were perfumed with the seductive fragrance of raw onions).

“N-no, Laurent… don’t cut my head open for science…” mumbled Odin. He had slept through the entire incident, by the looks of it.

“It’s okay,” said Leo quietly, giving him a little nudge with his foot. “I won’t let him cut you open.”

He had no idea who this Laurent was, but it seemed to calm Odin down: the frown faded from his brow, and his mutterings slipped back into his usual ursine snores. Leo laughed quietly to himself. In a few hours, he would have to wake them, and lead them into a battle none of them were anywhere near prepared for; but for now, he was content to sit and watch over them as they slept, his dear friend and his beloved.

Content, and this time, completely happy.

 

* * *

 

They set out early the next morning. Rather, Kamui assumed it was early; it was difficult to tell when the sky was an empty grey void. It certainly _felt_ early, she mused, a little grumpily.

Even so, she found herself in better spirits this morning than she had been on any morning for the last couple of months. Leo may not be able to transform as she could (as far as she knew, at least), but there was no denying that there was as much dragon blood in him as there was in her. He felt the same urges, and was able to repress them so well that she had lived with him for fifteen years without any notion of them. It could be done; and if she asked it of him, she knew he would gladly teach her how.

But she could discuss that with him once they’d finished their business here; they were nearing the castle now. Rather, that was what Nyx had called it: in reality, it didn’t look like any castle Kamui had ever seen. It was more like an island, a vast brown stone mass looming over the one they stood on, blanketed in layers and layers of moss like a wall of cliffs. A few smaller, detached buildings orbited it at various angles, and a winding branch of stone stairs led up to the nearest, which in turn appeared to be within jumping distance of the castle itself.

“Guess we’re taking the stairs,” said Kamui ruefully. “Sorry, Leo.”

“It’s fine,” he sighed; his eyes were fixed pointedly on the middle distance. “Death-defying leaps over fathomless dark chasms are just my lot in life, it seems.”

“Well, they won’t be after today,” she assured him.

Kamui picked her way up the stairs ahead of him, with Odin following behind. As Leo navigated the crumbling steps, she considered offering him a hand, but figured that would be an affront to his dignity in this instance: as much as he seemed to regard Odin as a friend, they were still master and servant, and Leo had always been a little more class-conscious than Kamui.

To do him credit, he scaled the stairs with his head held high, his gaze resolute; the only times it was even obvious that he had such a profound fear of heights was at the points where the stairs had crumbled away completely, leaving gaps that were occasionally too wide to step over and had to be jumped. In these moments, Kamui would always hear a faint sigh of relief over her shoulder with each landing.

Throughout the trek, Odin did his best to cut through the tension with what Kamui was coming to recognise as his usual brand of epic storytelling. He spent most of it regaling them with an account of the time he’d climbed an active volcano with his uncle; he’d probably made the whole thing up, of course, but it was entertaining enough to keep everyone’s spirits up.

“And my uncle raised his exalted blade aloft, and with it smote the Swordmaster Prince’s ruin upon the mountainside -”

“So which volcano was this?” asked Leo.

“One of the ones in my homeland,” said Odin, after an awkward pause.

“Wait, you’re not Nohrian?” Kamui nearly ground to a halt at that.

“No, he’s from - actually, you never really said where you were from.” Leo paused for a moment, apparently processing something. “Wait, Odin, are you… are you a _local_?”

Kamui did freeze at that; thankfully, so had the other two. She and Leo both whirled back to Odin. He floundered for a moment, opening and closing his mouth a few times, before nodding a subdued little nod.

“I came to Nohr from these lands. As did Laslow, and Selena. We… came fleeing the wrath of the Silent Dragon,” he said, in a voice lacking its usual dramatic energy.

“Odin…” The concern in Leo’s tone gave way to a disbelieving snort. “I will say I’m a bit scunnered you didn’t mention this sooner; it would’ve been useful to know we had more to go by than Nyx’s map.”

Odin shook his head at that. “Alas not, milord! My memories of this place are faint, and I have never set foot in the castle. In my humility, I shall concede that my uses would be few indeed as a guide.”

“Unless we need someone to lead us up a volcano, I guess,” quipped Kamui.

Leo raised a questioning finger. “Wait, so is that why you were so eager that I should visit the canyon that first time?”

Odin nodded vigorously. “You have my deepest regrets that I could not ask it of you openly, milord. I could think of no other way to impart this, the greatest secret of Odin Dark (which is saying something), unto you.”

“It’s fine. And a relief to finally know where you’re from, honestly. Niles was starting to get suspicious.”

“That he was,” said Odin, with a shudder.

“So we’ve unlocked your dark backstory, then,” put in Kamui. That brightened Odin up quite a lot.

“Indeed! In accordance with the conventions of the epic ballad, the chosen hero’s tragic past is laid bare in the first stirrings of the final act! Now, my stalwart companions, let us away to face the final boss!”

“Final boss? Er.” Leo cast a glance back at the castle; a rather fixed smile cracked across his face as he remembered where they were standing. “Yes, I think we’d better keep moving.”

They continued the long climb (over the course of which Odin resumed and concluded his volcano story; apparently his uncle had been tricked into killing the Swordmaster Prince by an evil warlord, whose fortress Odin had then stormed single-handed in a vengeful blood rage), until at last the stairway reached its end a few feet away from one of the floating islets nearest the castle. This was a rather wider gap to jump than any of the ones breaking up the staircase; and the landing on its other side was just a perch of ruined, crumbling wall that protested balefully when Kamui set foot on it. She herself had no cause for alarm (if all else failed, she supposed, she had the option of giving herself wings), but she felt for Leo. As soon as she’d alighted, and righted herself, she turned back to him with an encouraging smile. Leo returned it with a tight one of his own. He gritted his teeth, launched himself forward, and landed neatly in front of her.

The stone gave out under him almost immediately.

Kamui felt, rather than heard herself cry out - a panic speared through her that struck the world deathly silent. But where her mind had gone numb, her body ran on a rush of adrenaline; the next thing she registered was Leo's white-knuckled grip on her sleeves as she hauled him to more stable ground. Before she fully understood what was happening, Kamui found herself matching the desperation of his grasp with her own, twisting fistfuls of his coat around her fingers, half-afraid that if she lessened her hold he would plummet again.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, for her own benefit as much as his; although the raggedness of her voice as she said the words belied their sentiment. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” he parroted back, with a shaky nod. His tone was steadier, but as he raised his head to her, his eyes were widened with a terror she had never seen him show before as an adult. In every other respect, he had already forced himself calm again; the rest of his face was an expressionless mask, his breathing a civilised moderato. The only other indicator of what was happening in his head was his continued grip on Kamui’s sleeve. If they had been anywhere else, about to do anything else, Kamui would have held him longer, or perhaps pulled him into a real embrace. But they had almost reached the castle now; in a moment, there would be worse things than emptiness lying in wait beneath their feet.

Leo would be thinking along the same lines, of course; he straightened up (a little coltishly), and nodded briskly at her. “Ahem. Thank you.”

“Lord Leo!” Odin hurdled the gap with an ease and grace Kamui would hardly have expected from a mage, and came haring up to them. “Are you well? Why did you not unleash your Ultimate Spell of Levitation?”

With a pointed glance, Leo explained the full situation to Kamui: the only people he had made aware of his phobia were Camilla and herself, and he meant to keep it that way.

“I figured it was better to avoid using all my techniques before the battle,” he lied smoothly. “We don’t want the boss to see what we’re capable of, do we?”

Odin nodded sagely. “As you say, milord. Rest assured, I hold within the recesses of my mind secret techniques of such earth-shattering magnitude that I have not dared speak their names aloud anywhere before today!”

“Boss?” asked Kamui, in a low parenthesis.

“It’s a bit of jargon from this… board game we play sometimes,” Leo explained.

“What, like chess?”

“If the average chess game took three hours to finish and carried the risk of losing by carelessly impaling yourself on your own weapon, yes,” he said, in a sardonic tone that suggested he’d lost in such a way himself on more than one occasion.

Odin had charged on ahead, and made the leap to the island the castle was built on - or hewn into? - with ease. Leo made to follow him, but Kamui found herself holding him back, catching him by the yoke of his coat.

“What is it - ?” he began to ask; but the question died away in his throat as she lifted her chin to peck him on the cheek.

“You did well back there. I’m proud of you,” she whispered, squeezing his shoulder softly. She spun lightly back around without meeting his gaze, and dashed forward to catch up with Odin. Even as the three of them continued on to the castle, Kamui began to wonder, in the back of her mind, what it was that had made her turn from Leo so quickly.

Or why her lips still felt warm where they had brushed his cheek.

Or why she couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off her face.

 

* * *

 

“Do we have everything?”

Leo ran a hand over the inside of his satchel quickly, double-checking the positions of each tome and stave and elixir, making absolutely sure each one was readily at hand. He had brought as many healing supplies as the holding charm would let him fit into his bag, but now he doubted that it would be enough. “Everything but a plan, yes.”

Odin, meanwhile, was rummaging shoulder-deep through his. His expression was gradually twisting into one of deeper and deeper distress.

“What have you lost?” asked Leo, managing to keep his voice deceptively calm.

“The most important thing, milord!” Odin lamented. “Lady Kamui’s lines.”

Kamui blinked at him. “Eh?”

“As we partook of the Bulb of Pungent Sustenance last night, I took the liberty of composing a dossier of suitably heroic battle cries for your use when delivering the final blow.” He hung his head with a forlorn little whimper. “But it is lost to me now…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Kamui assured him quickly. “I can improvise. But thanks for going to all that trouble.”

It still warmed Leo to see how willing she was to play along with Odin’s theatrics. His friend’s eccentricities were peculiar, but harmless; and yet plenty of people openly derided them. He had a feeling he’d have loved Kamui the less if she had proven to be one of them.

“Anyway, let’s go.” She drew her sword, the grey sky tarnishing its golden blade to a dull brown that almost matched the castle walls, and led the way through the high triangular doorway.

Leo had visited ruins before - he’d even helped to excavate one, the summer he was eleven. He still remembered how envious Kamui had been while he was preparing for that trip, as the two of them sat together at the library table imagining some grand, cobwebby tower full of traps and treasure, like the ones in the yellowbacks he’d smuggled into the fortress for her. He also remembered how disappointed she’d been when all he came back with was a fragment of pottery he’d helped dig up from a decidedly unromantic maze of bare stone foundations.

The castle where Anankos dwelt was a ruin of the sort Leo and Kamui had envisioned as children. Its high stone walls were dry and sandy, and crumbling in various places, the light streaming through these gaps in precise, painterly rays. The mosaics tiling the floors were still largely intact, and intricate designs of peculiar birds and animals regarded them from underfoot with glittering eyes. The air was filled with that rich smell, of the sort one finds in a library or a museum: the smell of dust, and time, and magic.

Leo would have been in his element here, if not for the silence. It was an oppressive sort of silence, that turned every breath or footfall into an indicator of where they were, and every distant, possibly-imagined sound into something looking for them.

“Do you not think it’s odd that we haven’t run into any trouble so far?” he mused.

“I’ve been trying hard not to think that,” Kamui admitted grimly. “I think I’d notice if we were about to, though.”

“Clarify please.”

She hummed pensively. “How to describe it… it’s something I felt when I was fighting Gunter; and before that, during… the incident in the throne room. It’s sort of like… that damp feeling you get in the air, right before it rains.” She broke away with a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry, I’m probably not making much sense. But yes, that’s the kind of feeling I get whenever one of his puppets is close by.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” mumbled Leo. He wished he could have had her confidence, but her optimism inspired courage of another sort in him: the knowledge that, should the worst happen here, he would go to death in the name of defending his people, with Brynhildr in his hand and the phantom warmth of Kamui’s kiss branded into his cheek. There were worse ways to die, he supposed.

Even so, if nothing else, he should at least do everything he could to ensure his friends made it home safely. As they continued along the narrow corridors, Leo scanned their surroundings with an obsessive eye, memorising the route and making a note of anything that might be of use in an escape; here a crack in the wall large enough to jump from, there a statue that might work as an impromptu barricade. He knew that such an approach would be unpopular with the others - Kamui would think him a craven, and Odin would be gravely disappointed at being denied the chance to show off the dark powers of his raging blood - and there was a time when he would have agreed with them. But that had been the Leo of a year ago, as blinded by the principles of chivalry as Kamui had been by her ideals of trust and mercy. The Leo who had watched them bear Xander to the Hall of Remains, who had seen what last stands did to the hero’s body, and to the people he left behind, would weather their indignation without a word if it kept them alive.

They rounded one last corner when Kamui stopped.

The hallway she had led them to ended in a pillared, tapering doorway that stretched up almost to the ceiling. The doors were heavy stone slabs, chiselled with a rough geometric pattern; a small, catty part of Leo’s mind muttered that they were quite tacky.

Kamui’s shoulders had stiffened; her sword was raised as she approached the doorway.

“Is this it?” Leo asked, rhetorically. She nodded regardless.

“He’s in there. There is a strong smell of water.” She didn’t turn back to them as she spoke; her gaze remained fixed on the door before them, as if she expected Anankos to stick his head out of it and eat her the second she lowered her guard. “Let me go in first. Unless I can open with a blow from the Fire Emblem, we won’t be able to put a scratch on him.”

Leo nodded grimly. “We’ll have your back.”

“You are in good hands!” Odin concurred; before adding, as a little squeak into his knuckles, “(So excited!)” 

Kamui took a deep breath, and reached for the doors.

They slid open on their own.

Well, that was never a good sign, Leo mused.

The room they charged into was in far worse disrepair than the rest of the castle. Its high, sloped ceiling would, once upon a time, have been held up by a legion of pillars on either side, but now they lay scattered in cloven stumps, or strewn across the floor in pieces, like trees blown onto the road by a storm.

In the middle of it all lay Anankos.

Rather, there lay his head, sticking out through a hole in the wall: it took up half the room. He had his chin resting flat on the floor, like a dying hound. The clay mask covering his face was half-shattered, but still immediately recognisable as the face that had been engraved on the tablet.

The face behind it was rather less serene. His flesh was scraped so thinly over his skull as to be almost translucent, and had split in several places to expose the bone underneath. There were no eyes to be found where eyes ought to be, but in what was presumably his mouth, a pulsing, tumourlike cluster of eyeballs peered out, each regarding the party through glassy crimson irises.

“So… this is Anankos?” Kamui lowered her blade. Her eyes were wide with what looked worryingly like pity.

“Kamui.” Leo caught her eye, and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Anankos had been monitoring Kamui’s upbringing all her life; there was no telling whether he was genuinely suffering, or whether this was an underhanded appeal to her sense of empathy. Either way, she nodded, and tightened her grip on the Fire Emblem’s hilt.

“I’ve… been waiting for you, Kamui.” It was difficult to tell how Anankos was speaking, with his mouth full of eyeballs, but the words came out as a laboured drawl, every indrawn breath verging on a death rattle.

“Gods…” she whispered.

Anankos made a horrible hyperventilating sound that might have been a humourless laugh; or perhaps a sob. “See what you insects have done to me? You left me to rot… the god who gave you everything, you left me to…”

“I see your body’s not the only thing that’s barely holding together,” remarked Leo, before he could stop himself. It seemed his difficulties in reining in his sharp tongue were not limited to dealings with mortals, he mused ruefully.

“You… I know you,” Anankos gave that heaving laugh again. “I have seen your mind. I know… what you have spoken, into the bitter watches of the night. Patricide… perversion… lust for power… truly, you exemplify all your kind.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong on any count, but it was hardly civil of him to point it out.

“Be silent, dread Anankos!” retorted Odin. “We are come to deliver you from your prison of chaotic evil, and into the sweet repose of eternal darkness!”

Anankos’s many eyes swivelled to train on Odin; they narrowed, as if trying to place his face, and then closed entirely. He let out a sigh that reverberated throughout the hall. “Yes… perhaps oblivion is the only thing left for me. The others have gone… humanity has gone… and I alone remain…”

Kamui nodded solemnly. Pity had darkened her features again, but this time it did not soften them. “Not for much longer. Be at peace, Anankos.”

She raised her blade, pointing it square at the dragon’s many eyes, and charged forward.

There was a smashing sound that shook the entire hall.

“Wh-what…?” Kamui’s voice was a disbelieving quaver. The Fire Emblem lay in pieces on the floor.

Another sound echoed throughout the throne room: Anankos’s bitter wheeze of a laugh.

“Did you truly believe that I would so welcome death… while I remain in this state?” He lifted his head from the floor. “And you worms claim to carry the blood of dragons yourselves…”

Kamui took a half-step back. “But… the Fire Emblem…”

“That milk tooth?” He laughed all the harder, his voice swelling to a sickening roar. “It holds scarcely half the power it once did.”

Damn, damn, damn, damn, _damn_.

“Kamui, we need to leave, now…” Leo nudged her shoulder, lightly at first, but then more persistently, as she stayed frozen in place. She was still holding the hilt and a foot of the blade.

Slowly, and with a pained snarl, Anankos lifted his head, and drew back through the hole in the wall.

Kamui ran a few futile paces after him. “Where’s he -”

The floor heaved with a force that knocked them off their feet, as Anankos barrelled back into the room. For a moment, Leo thought he meant to charge them; but instead he snaked his head up towards the ceiling.

Everything was noise and dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we've made it to... wait, the final boss fight? Already?! HMMM, THIS DOESN'T SEEM RIGHT.
> 
> \- I think one of my favourite things about Leo and Kamui’s dynamic is that, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, Leo is very much the delicate princess to Kamui’s strapping knight, and there is a small, secret part of him (so much so that even he isn’t aware of it) that loves it when she treats him as such.
> 
> \- Leo meant his comment about natural 20s as a joke, but funnily enough, that actually is how the outcomes of my fight scenes are determined a lot of the time. I’m hopeless at deliberately choreographing battles in a way that feels natural, so usually I keep a little note of the characters’ stats on hand and roll a D20 to determine stuff like whether each blow hits, how much damage it does, whether the opponent seizes the chance to counterattack, &c. This is how stuff like Leo missing his spell in the battle with Gunter and Nyx ended up happening; it’s pot luck, and the enemy has just as much chance of hitting and critting as the heroes do, which makes the whole thing a lot more fun to write.
> 
> \- In canon, the changes to the light in Valla are very subtle, but they are there. In the cutscene where Kamui first arrives on Rev, it’s very broad daylight and the void is a stark white, but there are other cutscenes where it’s more grey. So… yes, my headcanon is that those scenes take place at night, because I can’t imagine it would take them three hours to get from the canyon to Castle Gyges when the distance between them on the map is twice the length of the Eternal Stairway. No fam, we’re looking at a full day’s hike at LEAST and that’s if you’re some kind of Alphonse Elric person who doesn’t have to eat or sleep.
> 
> \- Considering Anankos’s beef was with humanity specifically, I think it very unlikely that he wiped out all of Valla’s wildlife. With this in mind, I imagine Vallite animals must be rather quiet and ethereal creatures, hence why they’re never seen or remarked upon in the game. This is actually my one major gripe with Revelation being considered the “happy” ending: since Anankos summons that black hole that destroys Valla, it’s hard to think of the ending as happy when you consider all the animal and plant life indigenous to Valla that would have been made extinct. It’s not even fair to say that it’s a happy ending from Kamui’s perspective, considering how much she loves animals.
> 
> \- In order to find the word “leporine”, I first had to google the word “rabbit”, and now I feel it is my solemn duty to warn you all: do not google the word "rabbit". It produced some rather horrifying results, which were not at all like the sweet twitchy-nosed rodents I had gone in search of. I hope you all appreciate the sacrifices I make for the sake of this fic.
> 
> \- Fun fact, honey really was historically used as an antibacterial ointment when treating infected wounds.
> 
> \- As it happens, I can answer one of Kamui’s internal questions easily enough: she turned away from Leo because if she hadn’t, it would have been immediately obvious that he was in love with her from the simple fact that his face and ears had turned to the approximate colour of a raspberry.
> 
> \- I didn’t bother going into detail because it’s pretty much bog-standard for fantasy JRPG stories, but I feel like bags of holding are the only possible explanation for how any of these characters can run across a battlefield while schlepping three swords and six flasks of Concoction.
> 
> \- Yellowbacks were cheap “sensational novels” developed in the mid-19th century to compete with the penny dreadful; I’d thought about having them just read penny dreadfuls, but currency in Nohr isn’t measured in pence, and “one-gold dreadful” sounds weird. Again, they’re not actually medieval; Nohrian society as it appears in-game is pretty anachronistic anyway, so I’m okay with playing around with it in my headcanons, but part of the reason I always put these long-winded asides in the author’s notes is that I really don't want to misinform anyone.


	11. Black Wings in the Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kamui receives an abrupt education on various matters, at least one of which she was definitely happier not knowing about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: a dead body; much talk of death; the violence and gore in this chapter get pretty graphic compared to what they have been. There is also one scene where a character uses an attack that creates an earthquake. In light of recent events, I feel I should at the very least offer fair warning for that, along with a formal apology. My thoughts go out to all the people and animals in Hokkaido; I haven’t been able to find a charity to support the victims that people outside of Japan can donate to, but if you know of one, please let me know in the comments and I’ll link to it here.  
> Health and safety warning: This is fairly obvious probably, but if you should be so unfortunate as to suffer a dislocation, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FIX IT ON YOUR OWN OR WITH THE HELP OF SOMEONE WHO ISN’T A TRAINED MEDIC. Call 999 or 911 (or whatever your country's equivalent is); don’t try to snap it back into place yourself and DEFINITELY do not try to put weight/pressure on it, even if it snaps back on its own.

 

 

 

> _“And then spake the Dragon: ‘Have thy dead cleaned, and laid before my feet, and there let them be offered unto me as my devoted warriors; thereafter let thy sorcerers turn the water within their flesh to ice, that Time may not ravage them and the worms may not devour them; and entomb them with weapon in hand, that they might rise again to fight for me in Ragnarok, that is the last great battle at the world’s ending.’_
> 
> _And this did Siegfried do, and so mote all our dead be anointed hereafter.”_
> 
> \- _The Book of Dusk_ , 2:505. This part of the scripture primarily concerns the Dusk Dragon’s instructions to Siegfried following the first battle fought in His name, but the funeral rites it describes were practiced universally in Nohr up until the mid-16th century, and still are by the followers of the Church of the Dusk Dragon. From 1042 onwards, it became traditional for deceased members of the royal family to be entombed in the Hall of Remains - a vast, labyrinthine catacomb built under the foundations of Castle Krakenburg - originally as a measure to prevent the exhumation of the dead kings or the theft of their weapons, which were often more valuable and elaborate than the ones they fought with in life. A succession of Crypt-Keepers have been employed to guard and maintain the hall; they alone know the layout of its passages.
> 
> Leo II is entombed there, near his brother and father, in a shared sepulchre with his beloved Kamui. Curiously, while he was laid to rest with a spell tome in hand, Lady Kamui is unarmed, and instead lies with her hands clasped around a shard of cut dragonstone.

 

“‘… And Siegfried… _forslōh_?’ What is _forslōh_?”

“Smote,” said Father gently. “It means ‘destroyed’.”

“‘ _Smote’_ ,” Shigure continued, rolling the new word around to get a feel for how the sound was made, “‘the Forest Dragon, and out of its dead body he built a great fortress.’” He wrinkled his nose. “Father, I don’t like this story.”

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t,” Father sighed. “Let’s end the lesson there for today. Is there anything you’d like to do instead?”

Shigure considered this for a moment. There were actually quite a lot of things he wanted to do. He wanted to help Aunt Hinoka brush Pochi, or ride on Uncle Takumi’s shoulders, or play music with Aunt Sakura.

“When are we going home?” he asked. Father’s eyes widened, and he looked quite uncomfortable.

“We’ve been over this already, remember?” he said, setting a hand on Shigure’s shoulder. “You’re going to be king here one day. That means we’ll be staying here from now on, so you can learn how things are done in this country.”

“Wait. You mean staying… _forever_?” The thought was making Shigure feel dizzy and sick. Father and Aunt Kamui had both said that before, but he’d thought they meant staying for a visit.

Father nodded, a little sadly. “Yes, son. Staying forever.”

“I’ll never see them again? Aunt Hinoka… and Uncle Takumi… and, and…” Shigure began to cry. These tears weren’t the same sort of tears as the ones he’d cried when he said goodbye to his aunts and uncles. Those had just been sad tears, dripping down his cheeks as he thought of how much he’d miss them while he was away. The tears he cried now were panicky tears; big, fat, messy ones that made his whole face wet and his breathing fast and spiky.

Father pulled him onto his knee and into a hug. “Of course we’ll see them again. We can come back for visits. And they can come here.”

“I don’t want to visit,” Shigure insisted; he couldn’t get the rest of the words out, couldn’t even _find_ the words to describe all the things he didn’t want that everyone was pushing onto him. He didn’t want to be a king instead of a Sky Knight. He didn’t want to eat foods that were all mixed together. He didn’t want to wear clothes that were itchy and stiff and difficult to move in. He didn't want to look out the window and always see storm clouds instead of birds. He didn’t want to spend all his time in lessons, reading sad stories about things the other kings did. “I just want to go home.”

“I know.” Father patted his back, and smoothed his hair. “I know. I do too. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to. In any case, we’ll have your aunt and uncle with us here, and Aunt Kamui’s going to be staying for a long while.”

“A while?” Shigure pulled away to look at him. “Not forever?”

He only saw Father shake his head for a second, before the tears blurred his vision again. Aunt Kamui had been too busy to spend much time with him since they’d got here, and not having her around had felt very strange and wrong. The idea that she would disappear completely - that he’d have to say goodbye to her too…

Before he had time to think about what he was doing, he’d thrown himself off Father’s lap, and ran out the door.

“Shigure!” Father would probably come after him, running along the ground or jumping around over his head, and when he caught up, he’d make that disappointed face that hurt more than being hit would. But Shigure didn’t stop. He couldn’t ever stop running, he decided, not until he’d made it home. It was difficult to see where he was going past the tears in his eyes, and the fizzy lights dancing over them that he always saw when he was angry or scared. It was like the world around him had gone all scribbly; he felt, rather than saw himself run down the corridor and out of the first door he saw.

An icy wind blasted onto his face when he opened it. Wind was good. Wind meant he’d made it outside. Sure enough, when he went out and let the door slam behind him, the first thing he felt was the crunch of snow under his feet. Still he ran some more, but an icy crust had frozen over the snow in the night, and he soon skidded and fell face-first into it.

The coldness of it stung a little, but it was also quite soothing on his burning face and puffy eyes. He sat up, wiping little clumps of ice off his front, and had a look about. He had found his way into some sort of walled garden; little statues of monsters and goblins ( _gargoyles_ , Aunt Kamui had called them) sat in rows around its edges, as if to guard it from anyone trying to get out over the wall. They were too heavily covered in snow for Shigure to get a proper look at them, or for them to glare back at him.

The garden itself was quite bare; seeing as it was almost winter, the beds and pots were full of snow, and the trees had long since lost all their leaves. The only plants in here that didn’t look dead were the vines of spiky black ivy covering the wall. Shigure had half a mind to climb these vines, to get over the wall and out of the castle; but Mr. Jakob had once told him that ivy was very poisonous, and that he must never touch it with his bare hands. He really should have put some gloves on before he went out - and a coat, come to think of it. The ice crystals stuck to his doublet had melted, and the cold water was seeping through the fabric onto him. Still, it couldn’t be helped now; he would just keep going, he decided, until he found a spot in the wall that didn’t have any ivy growing all over it. Maybe he’d meet someone who would give him a coat on his way home.

Still crying a bit, he went back to shuffling through the snow, dodging statues of snooty-looking old kings and queens, and bundles of twigs that might turn out to be bushes in the spring. Eventually, he came to another wall, but this one had a doorway built into it, held shut by a metal gate decorated with swirling leaves and roses. When he tried it, he found it wasn’t locked, although it was very heavy. He tugged it open, just wide enough to squeeze through, and let it creak shut behind him.

His mouth fell open.

The garden he had just come from had been dead and empty, but this one was full of white flowers. All the same kind of flower: they had big, pointy petals that made them look like stars, and as Shigure passed, they nodded at him from on top of stalks almost as tall as he was. He’d seen Aunt Oboro using them sometimes in her artwork; she’d said they were called lilies.

There were white flowers growing up the walls too, and over his head: a huge spread of roses covered a metal frame laid out over the walls, almost like a sort of leafy roof. They made the air in here smell light and soothing; Shigure’s chest still burned from the effort of the panicked, gulping breaths he’d taken while he was running, but now he felt himself beginning to fall into slower, sleepier ones. The thin trees growing in rows in front of the wall had pinkish-white flowers on them as well - little round clusters of flowers on each branch, which Shigure excitedly recognised as being peach blossoms. If they were flowering in December, he wondered when they would start growing fruit; crying a lot always made him hungry afterwards.

The lilies were the best fun, though. They covered the entire space; it was like walking through a field of them. Their petals glowed with a strange sort of light; Shigure wondered if maybe Uncle Leo had made them with his magic. He walked through them very carefully, pushing them gently back with his hands. There was another wall at the end of the lily-field, and something that looked like warm torchlight. Shigure made for that gratefully: he really did wish he’d thought to wear a coat, but standing in front of a fire for a bit would dry him off just as well.

As he drew nearer, though, he saw that the light hadn't come from a torch, but from a row of metal lanterns standing around some sort of stone table. A girl in a white dress lay on top of it; she had very long, yellow hair, spread out over the table in curls like Aunt Kamui’s, and held a long metal staff in her hands.

One of the stories in his reading-books had been a fairytale about a princess who had been cursed by an evil wizard to sleep for hundreds of years. For a moment, Shigure wondered if maybe it had been a true story after all, same as the ones about Siegfried and Brynhildr, and now he’d found the princess; but when he circled around the table to get a better look at her face, he could see that her whole body was covered in frost.

“Ah.”

Shigure spun round; Aunt Camilla had appeared in the lily-field behind him. She was carrying a ring of dried roses, and looked very surprised to see him.

“A-Aunt Camilla.” Shigure swallowed hard. He still wasn’t sure where exactly he was, but somehow he had a feeling it wasn’t the sort of place children were allowed to just wander into. He was about to apologise for running off, to explain that he didn’t know how he got here, and to tell her not to worry because he hadn't touched anything; but when he opened his mouth, all that came out of him was more tears.

“Hey, hey.” Next thing he knew, Aunt Camilla had rustled through the lilies and was on her knees in front of him, pulling a lacy handkerchief out of her sleeve. The eye that wasn’t covered by her hair was open very wide; she looked like she might cry herself. “Whatever’s the matter, darling?”

“I c-can’t go home,” he choked. Her fingers went tight around the handkerchief for a moment, before she went back to dabbing gently at his cheeks.

“But I thought we were getting along so well?” Her voice was soft, but there was something not quite right about it; it was sort of shaky round the edges. “Don’t you like it here?”

“I-I do,” he sniffed. She pinched his nose with the handkerchief for him to blow into. “I like the wyverns, and the snow. And I like you. But…”

“But you like your family back in Hoshido as well,” Aunt Camilla said, rather than asked. She gave a long, deep sigh. “If you’d had any choice in the matter, you’d probably never have left, would you?”

“I know I can go back for visits. And they can visit me.” The spiky feeling in his chest was beginning to calm down again; now there was only a heavy sadness pressing down on him from the inside. “I just…”

Aunt Camilla took off her shawl, and wrapped it around his shoulders. It had a whiff of that sour-fruit smell that always followed her, but the wool was very soft and warm, and it covered him down to his knees. “I know, darling. When you’ve spent your entire life living with someone, suddenly not having them around anymore feels awful, even if you know you’re going to see them again one day.”

“Why do I have to be the king?” sighed Shigure. “Nobody even asked me if I was okay with it first.”

Aunt Camilla bit her lip, in the same way Aunt Kamui sometimes did when she was about to say sorry.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that, darling,” she said. “There isn’t anyone else around who can be king after your uncle. There’s just you.”

He gave his eyes a last wipe on the back of his hand. “What about you? You could be a queen.”

Her eyes went wide again for a moment; Shigure was scared she might actually cry after all. But instead she laughed into her sleeve. “Oh no, dear, I’d make a terrible queen. You’ll do a much better job of it than your poor old aunt could.”

“Aunt Kamui, then,” said Shigure stubbornly.

“It’s true she’d make an excellent queen,” Aunt Camilla admitted. “But she’s not a member of the Nohrian royal family.”

Shigure blinked at her. “Yes she is. She’s my aunt. She’s your sister.”

“Yes, she’s part of the family now, but she wasn’t born into it like we were.” Aunt Camilla closed her eyes for a moment, and made a _hmm_ sound. “How to explain it… well, it all has to do with the First Dragons.”

“Dragons?” Shigure perked up a little at that.

“I had a feeling you’d like that,” grinned Aunt Camilla. “You and me and Leo, we’re all descended from the Dusk Dragon, aren’t we? And Aunt Kamui isn’t.”

“She’s descended from the Dawn Dragon.” Shigure remembered her telling him that, when he’d asked her how she’d learned to turn into a dragon and why she couldn’t teach him to do it.

“Yes, exactly. And since the Dusk Dragon is the one who watches over this country, all the Nohrian kings and queens have to be descended from Him. So Kamui can’t be queen.” Aunt Camilla laughed again, then. “Unless she were to marry Leo, I suppose.”

Shigure nodded, half to himself. “I think I understand.”

“Anyway, that’s why you’re going to be king. Because the dragon thinks you should.” Her smile was brighter now than it had been.

Shigure felt very guilty then. “I’m sorry for running off. And coming in here without asking. And… and for making you drop your flowers on the ground!” He scrambled to pick them up, and dust the snow off them.

Aunt Camilla shook her head. “Oh, no harm done, dear. They were always going to get a little icy anyway.”

Shigure turned back to the sleeping girl. “Are they for her?”

“Yes. I like to bring her little presents whenever I can.” She took the roses from him, and went over to slip them gently onto the girl’s head. It made her look even more like a princess in a fairytale, Shigure thought. “This was her garden, you know. We thought she’d be happier out here than in the Hall of Remains.”

“Hall of Remains?” Shigure frowned. “What’s that?”

Aunt Camilla pursed her lips into a tiny little dot.

“Nothing you need to worry yourself over for a long time yet,” she said, very quickly. She turned back to the sleeping girl, and began stroking her hair and whispering things to her.

“Um. Is she… actually the princess? In the fairytale. The one who has to sleep forever.” Even as he asked it, he began to feel like it was a silly question; he felt himself go red as Aunt Camilla laughed at him.

“Well, she is a princess. And she will sleep until the world ends,” she said. “But no. This is my little sister, your Aunt Elise.”

Shigure swallowed hard. Aunt Kamui had spoken about Aunt Elise maybe two or three times, and every time, she had sounded so terribly sad that Shigure almost wanted to cry himself. Nobody had ever told him exactly why; only that something dreadful had happened to Aunt Elise before he’d had the chance to meet her. Now he thought of the picture in his reading-book, of the king and queen and all the knights, crying and crying over the cursed princess as she slept. He understood.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Elise.” He walked up to her, and patted her hand. She was so cold, colder than the snow; her hand was hard, and slightly wet where he touched it. “I didn’t mean to mess up your garden.”

“Oh, darling!” Aunt Camilla had a hand clamped over her mouth; her eye was sparkling with what Shigure eventually realised were tears. “Don’t worry about that. She loves having visitors. Especially other children.”

“Would it be okay if I came back sometimes, then?” he asked. “It’s nice and quiet here.”

Aunt Camilla laughed, but it was a sniffly sort of laugh. “I’m sure she’d like that very much. Just make sure you tell someone where you’re going first. Your father, or Aunt Kamui, or me. This castle isn’t a very safe place for children to walk about in on their own.”

“Okay,” Shigure nodded; then frowned. “Aunt Kamui’s been away a very long time, hasn’t she?”

“Mm. She and your uncle went out again two days ago.” Aunt Camilla sighed, and shook her head. “Those two. I wonder what they’ve got themselves into this time?”

 

* * *

 

Kamui’s head pulsed and pounded as she forced herself to sit up. Her right side ached where it had hit the ground, and her fringe was plastered to her brow with what smelled suspiciously like blood, but, thank all the gods, she was otherwise unhurt.

The hilt of the Yato lay on the floor beside her. About a foot of the blade had survived, ending in a crooked chisel-point, and the two glowing red stones below the crossguard had held their place. Instinctively, Kamui snatched it up; it wouldn't be much use as a weapon, but gripping the hilt of it still felt oddly reassuring.

She took stock of her surroundings, still squinting past the dust circling the air. The room where they had confronted Anankos lay scattered around her in ruin - along with all the rooms on every floor above it. The castle was just a single open space now; or would have been, save for all the fragments of rubble strewn about. In the middle of it all sat Anankos, perched on the far edge of the field like a gargoyle on a roof. He sat completely upright - he had been faking his infirmities, but not by much. His body was so emaciated as to be little more than a skeleton; there were many areas where his thin covering of flesh had split open, exposing every bone and vein and organ beneath. His back legs lay in useless, scabby twists under him, and the dark membrane of his wings looked more like spiderwebs than anything. It shouldn't have been possible for any creature to stay alive in that state; it would, Kamui noted with a rush of pity, be a source of chronic pain just to exist in a body like that. And yet even the blade forged specifically for slaying dragons had shattered when it touched him.

_“You awaken, dragonborn.”_

Kamui cast about for the source of the sound. It was definitely Anankos’s voice, but it wasn’t coming from his direction; rather, it seemed to echo around the insides of both her ears.

No, she corrected herself grimly: it was echoing around the inside of her head.

She craned her neck to meet his gaze. As it turned out, Leo had guessed wrong on one count: Anankos was not the size of Fort Dragonfall. He was at least twice as big; taller than the castle itself had been, tall enough to level the building just by standing his full height. His shadow almost eclipsed the entire field.

“Anankos.” She kept her voice low, to cover the tremor in the back of her throat. If he had got into her mind, he’d be able to hear her whispers just as well as she could. “I came here to help you.”

 _“You came to cut me down.”_ The voice registered as a nightmarish snarl, but the aggression behind it sounded more defensive than menacing to Kamui. _“Just as the ones who came before sought to cut me down.”_

Kamui’s dragonstone was pounding against her ribcage, as blisteringly hot as dragonfire. Her hand was reflexively reaching for it when she caught herself, and forced her fist resolutely down to her side.

_“Even now, you recoil from your true form, because you were told that you would become what I have become. At the bidding of these lesser mortals, you have forsaken your own kind. You have forsaken yourself.”_

“Lady Kamui!”

She whipped around, snapping herself back into the world outside her head. Odin was waving to her frantically from some feet away, shielded from the dragon by a fallen corner of wall.

“Odin?” she called back, as much to make a show of pointedly ignoring Anankos as out of genuine concern. “Where’s…?”

“Here, he’s here. Make haste; he has need of a healer!”

Kamui didn’t need telling twice. She started towards them, skirting broken pillars and ducking under crumbled arches. Anankos made no move to follow her - with his wings and legs in that state, he probably _couldn’t_ move - but out of the corner of her eye, she could see him open his mouth wider. His ball of eyes began to glow with a watery blue light. Was he about to breathe fire?

 _“It is a folly I know all too well,”_ he continued, his tone dripping with condescension. _“There was a time when I held a similar fondness for them, these tiny crawling things.”_

He released the breath he had been holding. It was certainly searing hot, but it came out not as fire, but as a jet of scalding water. Kamui leapt forward; the blast missed her head and torso, but caught one of her ankles. Blinding pain blistered over her foot, but she made herself keep running.

_“But in time, I came to learn that they did not care for me. As will you. In time.”_

“Not listening,” muttered Kamui, as she ducked behind the wall. Leo sat propped against it; he was conscious, and didn’t look too heavily bloodied. It took her a moment to pick up on what was wrong with him: one of his knees was bent at an angle no knee had any right to bend to.

“Kamui!” He tried to stagger into a more upright position when he saw her, but his face contorted into an agonised grimace, and he fell back down with a stifled curse.

“Leo.” She took his face in her hands. He was drenched in a cold sweat, and she could feel him shaking under her fingertips. “Are you all right? What happened to you?”

“My lord was struck down in the rain of stone, while attempting to shield us from the destruction.” Odin pointed over to a very heavy-looking pillar lying nearby.

“Gods… Is it broken?”

Leo shook his head. His dark eyes were unnaturally wide as they scanned her face; his words came out through his teeth in a ragged rattle. “Just… just landed on it wrong, I think. - but forget about me! What happened to your _head_?!”

Kamui lifted a finger to the wound on her brow; a dusting of dried blood came away on her fingertips, but the flow of it seemed to have stopped. “Just a nick. I’m fine. Can you stand?”

“Would we be having this conversation if I could?” he asked flatly; then sighed. “I’m sorry. There’s a couple of healing staves in my bag. Odin doesn’t know how to use them, but -”

He was interrupted by the thundering of water against the wall. A few cracks began to form in the mortar.

“Change of plan, then,” he conceded. “We’ll heal up once we’re out of here. Right now we need to leave, and quickly.”

Kamui turned to glance over her shoulder. The rest of Valla lay spread out beneath the castle, but they’d never survive the drop down. “How?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Another blast of water erupted against the wall, which was visibly protesting under the pressure. “Look, as humiliating as it is to ask, if you two could keep that one distracted while I think of something…”

“Consider it done, milord. I’ll handle this miscreant!” Odin gave Leo’s shoulder an awkward sort of pat. “Rest up, ‘kay?”

Kamui’s clean hand was still cupped around Leo’s cheek; she drew his face up to her own, pressing her forehead against his.

“I’ll keep you safe. I swear it,” she whispered.

Leo closed his eyes, and his brow gathered into an anguished furrow again. “Just don’t do anything reckless, either of you. We’re trying to find a means of escape, not taking our last stand.”

“Fear not, Lord Leo. We know we went into this fight underlevelled,” said Odin sagely. 

With a last great roar, the wall burst. This time, all three of them took the brunt of it; Kamui’s entire body stung as she staggered to her feet. She cast a terrified glance down at Leo.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, although the angry red burns clouding the side of his face and neck hissed that he wasn’t. “I can still cast in this state. Now scatter.”

She and Odin skirted him carefully, and moved to take their places between him and the dragon: two steps forward, one to the side. Kamui fought to ignore the hammering of her dragonstone as she stared Anankos down; he was already charging another breath attack. Honestly, that was just overkill.

“Ye gods,” said Odin quietly. “It’s like the Dragon’s Table all over again.”

“Do you have any ideas?” asked Kamui.

“I have special attacks,” he shrugged.

“That’s a start. Frontal assault it is, then.”

In the background, she could faintly hear a disgusted sound from Leo.

“Hey, if you’ve come up with a better idea already…” she called sweetly over her shoulder.

They charged forward. Anankos spat another jet of water at them, but at the same time, Odin lifted his hand to cast. “ _Radiant Dusk!_ ”

Steam exploded over the field.

“What did you do?” asked Kamui, between choking fits.

“The Radiant Dusk technique, taught to me by Lord Leo himself!” said Odin, proudly. “See, apparently hitting water with a Thunder spell makes the water rear up like -”

He was cut off rather abruptly, as Anankos’s foot swept the field with a force that nearly knocked them to the ground. Kamui just barely had time to scuttle out the way as the foot came down again, and again, slamming over them with a force that sent bits of the wreckage flying and made the entire castle shake.

Kamui shot a frantic glance back at Leo; the quake had tossed a sizeable fragment of wall at him, but he caught it with one of his levitation spells, holding it fast in midair. Just for a moment, his wicked grin shone out, past the pain and exhaustion clouding his face; with a flick of his wrist, he sent the wall flying back. It dropped onto Anankos’s head with a dull thud; he didn’t appear to have taken any damage, but it was still enormously satisfying to watch. Kamui threw Leo a quick thumbs-up over her shoulder.

There was a pause, then. Kamui wasn’t sure what the dragon was doing, until she saw the shadow of his claws pass over to where she’d left Leo.

“No -” She started running back to him, but as it turned out, this had been a feint: Anankos swept his foot back and slammed into the ground between them. Another chunk of stonework came barrelling at her; but then it stopped directly above her head, and was thrown off the other way.

 The guttural growl of Anankos’s laugh reverberated throughout her skull.

_“Why do you insist on throwing your life away for this child? This half-breed, this glorified ape?”_

“Still not listening,” said Kamui stubbornly, as she scrambled to her feet again. Anankos may be able to see into her mind, but it seemed that, for whatever reason, all he could do was talk and listen; he couldn’t control her movements. He couldn’t stop her from attacking him. The hilt of the Yato did still have a bit of the blade attached, after all; it was more of a breadknife than a sword, but she’d seen Jakob and Felicia bring down wyverns with smaller blades. This would be the same basic idea, but on a bigger scale, she told herself.

“Radiant Dusk!” Another cloud of steam burst out over her path as she spun on her blistered heel and surged forward. The steam itself scarcely felt better on her burned skin than taking the full force of the attack, but Kamui persisted through it. She knew where she was going.

Up close, Anankos’s torso was as run-down and half-decayed as his head. His ribcage was held together with twisting ropes of tendons and a thin membrane of skin; Kamui could actually _see_ his lungs fluttering inside.

_“You must know that it is a fool’s hope. He will never feel as you do.”_

Kamui took a step back.

_“I have seen his mind. You have never been a sister to him. And the moment he learns your true nature… when he sees what lies within your heart…”_

Kamui sprang forward.

She felt the transformation happen even as her blow struck. Where she had made to strike with the  Yato, a fistful of claws slashed at him instead. They ground bluntly against his scales, dragging a trail of sparks down the length of his chest. But as she fell back to the floor, she could have sworn that for a second - or less than that, the tiniest fraction of a second - she had felt herself gore a snag into his leathery hide.

By the time she’d landed on her knees, her hand had gone back to being a hand. If she _had_ managed to scratch him, it had left too small a mark to be seen even when he wasn’t moving. Maybe Anankos wasn’t even aware of it himself.

The dragon reared his head, and brought it down in front of her. He was preparing another scalding breath, and this time she was directly in front of his maw.

 _“He will turn from you,”_ he snarled. _“They will all turn from you.”_

Kamui’s grip on the Yato’s hilt tightened. If this was to be her end, she would die with her blade buried deep in this creature, this thing that so embodied everything she had feared becoming in life.

“Sorry Leo,” she muttered ruefully. “Looks like this is my last stand after all.”

With a fey roar, she charged forward.

Blue light enveloped the world.

 

* * *

 

When the light cleared, Kamui was drenched to the skin, but the water was rather colder than she’d expected.

It took her a moment to realise where she was, but between the icy rain washing over her, the doughy mud she knelt in, and the utter blackness of the sky overhead, it was easy enough to guess. Nobody had ever been as happy to find themselves at the Bottomless Canyon as she was in that moment, and only once would anyone ever feel that way in the future.

“Nohr! Sweet realm of the gentle night rains!” A few feet away, Odin actually kissed the ground. Leo was sitting up with rather more dignity than either of them, twisted leg and all, but he still allowed himself a relieved sigh.

“You’re both still in one piece, right?” he asked raggedly. “Nobody’s lost any fingers, or anything?”

“Nay, milord! Humble Odin is the very picture of salubrity!” Odin tried one of his usual flourishes, but then doubled over with a pained grunt. “Well… give or take a few scalds here and there…”

“I can fix that easily enough. Kamui?”

“I’m fine. We’re safe.” Kamui’s words came out in a disbelieving laugh. “Wait, how are we safe?”

In answer, Leo held up a bundle of ragged papers sandwiched between what she recognised as the cover of the warp book he had lent her. “Didn’t I tell you I’d think of something?”

Kamui frowned at the sight of it. “But you said…”

“I say a lot of things,” he said airily. Kamui wondered what he was covering this time, but she decided against pressing him just yet.

“Um. There’s no chance we’ll be followed?” she asked instead, with a dubious glance at the canyon’s mouth.

“You saw the state of his legs, and his wings. He’s not leaving that island, unless he finds a new permanent vessel. Anyway, if we could discuss it someplace a little less… wet?” he suggested mildly. “I really don’t want pneumonia on top of everything else.”

“There’s a fort over that way. We’ll… oh.” Kamui paused. “That’s right, you can’t walk, can you?”

Leo buried his face in his hands, with a groan like an affronted cat.

The three of them made for the half-crumbled watchtower in what was an amused silence for Kamui and Odin’s part, and a disgusted one for Leo’s. He spent the entire walk with his face pressed into her shoulder, stubbornly refusing to give either of them the entertainment of seeing his reaction. In all honesty, Kamui couldn’t really fault him for that; for all she’d joked about it, it did feel a little silly to be carrying someone that much taller than herself. Still, it was hardly back-breaking labour: despite all the layers of fur and leather he had on in lieu of plate armour, Leo felt even lighter in her arms than his wiry frame had led her to expect. There was something rather pleasant about it, really; Kamui felt a little like a knight in a fairytale, carrying the princess away from the dragon’s lair.

Of course, it would have been nicer if he hadn’t smelled quite so strongly of brick-dust and onions.

It was with some regret that she came in from the rain, to the relative warmth and dryness of the leaky fort. The mist billowing over her, and the loose mud underfoot, had felt deliciously soothing on her burn scabs; she’d had half a mind to throw her cloak and cuirass aside and let the water soak through her hakamashita completely, like one giant poultice laid out across her back and shoulders. Still, Leo’s injuries were far more severe, and she could already imagine his reaction to being made to sit in the muck while she healed him. As it was, he complained remarkably little about being set down onto the rotting floorboards.

“I’ll see to your burns now,” he said instead, before she’d even finished lowering him to the ground. As Kamui wondered at how cold her shoulders suddenly felt without his arm around them, he began ferreting around in his bag and produced a healing stave (the sight of him pulling the long pole out of his satchel would have made her laugh under any other circumstances), which she promptly stole from him.

“A couple of burns aren’t going to lame us permanently,” she pointed out.

Leo sighed, and passed the satchel to her. “As you say. There’s a few elixirs in here, if either of you wants a spot of temporary relief in the meantime.”

“Right.” Kamui nodded briskly, praying she looked more confident than she felt. Sakura may have taught her the basics of how to treat battlefield injuries, but Kamui herself had never actually put these lessons into practice over anything more serious than stitching gashes. “Odin, if you could light a -”

“Blazing Blade!” There was an impressive burst of light; when it cleared, a reluctant flame stuttered in the abandoned grate.

“Thanks.” The room still wasn’t lit as brightly as Kamui was used to, but at the very least she could see well enough to pick at the laces of Leo’s boot now. Before long, she had worked it off, and rolled his legging up, baring the dislocated kneecap. She sucked her breath in through her teeth at the sight of it. It almost looked to be in two places at once, half of it having slipped around to the outside of his leg.

“Have you done this before?” asked Leo dubiously.

“If watching Sakura do it counts, then yes,” Kamui admitted. “I’m guessing you haven’t either?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What, treated a dislocation, or sustained one?”

“Um. Either, I suppose,” she mumbled. “I know the theory, though.” (Or hoped she still knew it, anyway.)

“Then I shall defer to your superior expertise here,” he nodded, with a weak smile that might equally have been encouraging or amused.

“Okay.” Kamui swallowed hard as she cupped her hands around it, and prayed that he hadn’t heard. “If your kneecap hasn’t clicked back into place on its own, I’m supposed to reset it manually, right?”

“Hey, you’re the professional. Why are you asking - _ack!_ ” His mocking grin this time was short-lived; it soured into a pained grimace as she wrenched the patella around to what she hoped was its rightful place.

“Ah gods, I’m sorry!” she cringed. “Now that I think about it, Sakura always gave them something to bite on first…”

“It’s, it’s fine,” he groaned, in a way that made it plain that it wasn’t. “Do you remember what she did after this part?”

“Oh, yeah! We just need to go over you with the festal - or staff, I guess - and fix any torn ligaments.” Kamui had brightened at how easily it was coming back to her; it occurred to her too late that it was probably a little insensitive to sound so upbeat while treating what was probably a very painful injury. She cleared her throat, and tried again in a more serious tone. “It’s a simple process, but it takes a while.”

“Okay. Odin, come here a minute.” Leo reached into his bag, trying to rummage through it without moving too much while she set about casting the spell. After several minutes of this, he managed to find a second staff. “I can attend to the two of you while she’s doing that.”

Odin shook his head stoically. “Ah, no need, milord! ’Tis but a flesh wound!”

“Odin, do you know what happens to second-degree burns if you let them go completely untreated?”

“They leave totally awesome scars?” Odin ventured dubiously.

Leo proceeded to educate him on the subject of burn scar contracture. In great detail.

“Then I shall submit to milord’s mystical ritual of regeneration.” Odin dropped to sit on his heels at Leo’s side; he had gone a little pale. “Unrelated, I don’t suppose either of you has in your possession a Bag of Holding Ejecta?”

“D-do mine after him,” Kamui concurred shakily, pausing to briefly transfer her own efforts from Leo’s kneecap to his burns. Kamui liked to think she had a reasonably strong stomach (four years on the battlefield didn’t exactly leave you reaching for the smelling-salts at the sight of blood), but that was a mental image she could have lived without.

These wounds healed rather faster than the torn ligaments, though: one quick incantation, and they faded like a stain under running water.

“Power… overflowing!” Odin sprang back to his feet, and did a funny sort of experimental flourish with his arms. “You have my thanks, Lord Leo!”

“Ha, don’t mention -” Leo was interrupted by a sharp yelp, as Odin’s spinning and posing brought him stumbling that little bit too close to the fire. “… Do you need healed again?”

“N-no, I’m good,” said Odin, as he stomped the last few embers away from the hem of his cloak. “Mayhap I should lie dormant for a spell, and train my newfound powers on the preparation of the Ashen Lifeslab?”

He was addressing this to both of them, Kamui realised, with a ripple of mortified panic.

“He’s asking if we want toast,” Leo elaborated in a whispered parenthesis.

“Oh. Yes please,” said Kamui gratefully. “Thanks, Odin.”

Odin drew a packet of waybread from his satchel that was rather larger than the bag itself; it was a bit of a squeeze pulling it out.

“So I suppose we should probably discuss what went wrong back there,” mused Leo, as he turned his attentions to Kamui’s wounds.

“Your guess is as good as mine, honestly.” Kamui bit back a sigh of relief as the pain began to soften, and then to drain away entirely. She hoped she was managing to soothe his wounds half as well; he hadn’t said anything yet, but paradoxically, Leo was always less inclined to complain when he actually had cause to. “Nyx did say the Fire Emblem would be able to pierce his hide.”

“Are we certain that was definitely the Fire Emblem, though?” he asked; then shook his head as he realised what he’d said. “Wait, no, that wasn’t meant to sound like I was casting doubt on your claim that it was, I just -”

“It’s fine, I’d be asking the same. And yes.” She nodded emphatically. “The Rainbow Sage was the one who told me as much. And he was the one who forged all the divine weapons, so…”

Leo had been half-sitting, half-lying on the floor, leaning on his elbows, but he sat bolt upright at that. “He _forged_ them?”

“Apparently?” Kamui shrugged. “So he said, anyway. I don’t understand how that works either, but when I asked him to clarify, he just obfuscated with a joke and changed the subject.” This last sentence she punctuated with a rather pointed stare at Leo.

“Well, it’s obvious how it works!” Leo’s voice had taken on the same excitable quaver that stippled his speech whenever he spoke of his botanical experiments, or his historical research. “The only beings that _can_ live that long are manaketes!”

Kamui laughed quietly, as much at her own foolishness in not realising this sooner as anything else. “When I saw him last, we spent so much time talking about the history of the First Dragons… how did it never occur to me?”

“Did he tell you anything else that we might have overlooked? Or just… _anything_ else?” Leo’s hands caught and clasped hers; a giddy light danced over his eyes. Gods, he was like a child on solstice night.

Kamui thought back to the conversation, but all that came to mind was the Sage’s warnings about degeneration. She gently pulled her hands out of Leo’s, both to continue healing him and to avoid letting him feel her shudder at the memory. “Nothing we’d be able to use here, I don’t think.”

“Regardless, if anyone knows how we might reforge the sword, it’s going to be him. - ah, thanks, Odin.” Leo inclined his head gratefully to his retainer, who had come forward with a few slightly charred wafers of waybread and a very troubled expression. He raised an eyebrow at that. “Something wrong?”

Odin’s eyes widened, as if his mind had been startled back to reality after having been miles away. “Ah. Um. That is to say… It occurs to me, milord, that if the Rainbow Sage is himself one of the divine dragons, might he not arm us all with more of his fangs? As the Divine Dragon gave Her fang to Anri, in the forging of the exalted Falchion?”

Leo’s face crumpled in confusion. “Her fa… Odin, Falchion was forged from dragonstone. You know, like a wyrmslayer.”

Odin shook his head insistently. “Lord Leo, your mastery over the lore of old has no parallel in this world, but on this point I must correct you. Falchion indisputably began life as one of Great Naga’s fangs.”

“The story must be told differently in other cultures,” Kamui interrupted, before Leo could start on one of his legendary academic rants. “I’ll write and ask him about that when we get back to the castle. Thanks, Odin.”

“Shall I set out to retrieve our fell steeds now, then?” he offered. There was an odd note of excitement in his voice - at least, even more so than there was normally.

“I don’t know. I’m not quite done fixing Leo’s knee yet.” In all honesty, Kamui wasn’t sure letting him back in the saddle so soon was the best idea: if she’d cast it right, the healing spell would speed the recovery process enough for him to walk again, but it couldn’t make an injury like that disappear completely. Still, it wasn’t as if they had any other way of getting back to Windmire, unless he was willing to risk using the warp book again.

Wait.

“Actually, if you want to, I guess it would be useful to have the horses standing by,” she amended. “But only if it’s not too much of a bother.”

“Sidequest accepted!” chirped Odin. “I and our chargers shall show you the meaning of haste!”

“Is he going to be okay?” Kamui asked, as they watched him bound back out into the night.

“Gods yes. He’ll take any excuse to go out in a thunderstorm,” said Leo, with a rueful but fond half-smile. “Says he’s training for his battle with the god of lightning.”

“Well, as long as he’s enjoying himself.” Considering most of the action was happening underneath the skin, it was a little difficult to gauge how far along they were in the healing process, but Leo’s knee looked like it was gradually beginning to tighten into place, like a tacked seam being properly stitched down. “So, um.”

“Something wrong?” Leo was looking at her with an inscrutable expression; his brow was slightly furrowed, but his eyes were wide, and so softened with concern as to be almost black. They looked even darker when thrown into contrast with his eyelashes, which were pale at the best of times and almost like glass in the glow of the fire and Kamui’s spell. She had always been a little jealous of Leo’s eyes, in truth; they were very slightly narrower than her own, but he had longer lashes, and his pupils weren’t thin, reptilian slits. The colour of them was similar, though: a dark red-gold, like the last days of autumn, very appropriate for a mage who specialised in plant magic.

He raised one eyebrow now, startling her back to the here and now. Kamui cringed as she wondered how long she had been staring at him like some slack-jawed ninny. “Ah, sorry, did I space out again?”

“You were out for a couple of minutes that time. If we’d been doing anything else today I’d be teasing you right now, but…” He gesticulated for a moment. “Did something happen?”

Kamui paused for a moment, uncertain whether this was really the best time to ask him about it. Intellectually, she knew she had the option of broaching the subject some other time; but Leo had made it clear, when she had very apologetically given it back to him, that using a warp book that far gone was extremely dangerous, and almost guaranteed to cost you an arm and a leg in the literal sense. If she and Odin were both in one piece, Leo must have knowingly sacrificed some part of himself; in which case she’d prefer to know now, when she might still be in a position to heal some of the damage.

She took a deep breath. “You tell me.”

Leo’s soft expression hardened into something more defensive. “If you’re asking about the warp book -”

“You told me that if we used it in that state, it was unlikely that we’d arrive with all our limbs attached. And yet we’re all still in one piece.” Kamui frowned then. “Aren’t we?”

“What can I say?” he shrugged. His dark eyes were lowered now, and he appeared to have become very interested in watching his fingers clasp and unclasp in front of him. “We all know you have the devil’s luck. Some of it must have rubbed off onto me, I suppose.”

“Leo,” said Kamui sharply. He didn’t lift his gaze to meet hers, but his shoulders slumped in a defeated sigh.

“Look, there genuinely wasn’t any other way to get us out of there,” he said, in a clinical, offhand tone that was downright jarring in contrast to the agitation etched into his face. “And I couldn't run the risk of you or Odin suffering worse injuries than you had already because I cast a fragmented version of the original spell. So I cast the full version, from memory.”

Kamui’s eyes narrowed. “If that’s all that happened, why were you so hesitant to talk about it?”

“Casting that way carries its own risks,” Leo explained. “You see, the thing about spell tomes is that they’re not just a source of instruction on how to cast the spell. They’re also conduits that channel both the vitality of the earth, and the latent magical energy within the soul of the caster, into powering the spell. It’s theoretically possible to cast without a tome, as long as you know the incantation, but…”

“But?”

Leo finally lifted his head. His face now was a mask of careful neutrality; when he spoke again, his voice barely rose above a whisper.

“Spell tomes are specifically designed to derive as much power as possible from the planet, and as little as possible from the caster. Whereas when casting freehand, if you will…” He trailed off with a humourless snort of a laugh. “Well, usually that requires some sort of… payment.”

Cold dread seized Kamui. Her mind had wandered back to the schoolroom, to the days they had spent learning the basics of necromancy. To her difficulties in wrapping her head around the idea of a spell that could be cast without the use of a tome or a staff. To their revulsion at the thought of a spell that drew its energy from the caster’s life force. 

Kamui forced the memory from her head. She could feel the tears beginning to prick at her eyes, and if she followed that line of thinking any farther, they would spring forth. Besides, she reminded herself, there was still no way of telling how long her own lifespan was; if she had inherited the body of a manakete in full, outliving everyone she loved was a reality she would have to come to terms with sooner or later.

But when she looked at Leo - at his long, clever fingers that could create rich gardens out of thin air; at his shoulders bowed from hours bent over his screeds and treatises; at his dear face, by turns gentle and sly, refined and lively - and imagined a world where he had lain cold under the castle for centuries, and she was the only person left who remembered what colour his eyes had been, what his voice had sounded like… gods, even to think about it was to rip the heart from her chest, and leave in its place a lead weight, pressing crushingly on her from the inside.

Kamui’s focus on the spell broke; her staff clattered to the floor. She tried to speak, to ask what on earth had possessed him to do that to himself, but the words stuck in her throat. All she could do was gape at him in wide-eyed horror, shaking her head as if simply telling him no would somehow undo his actions.

“Leo, tell me you haven’t done what I think you’ve done,” she pleaded, once she’d finally found the wind to speak.

Leo sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it was reckless. But as I said, there wasn’t any alternative. Sometimes you need to sacrifice a pawn to keep the game going.”

“But you’re not a pawn, Leo,” Kamui pointed out, her voice still a shaky rasp. “Gods… so what exactly happened? Is this just going to affect your lifespan, or did it damage your insides in some way?”

“My… excuse me?” Leo opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, but all that came out the first few times was bewildered silence. “Kamui, what are you talking about?”

She blinked at him. “You… didn't cast it from your life force?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he fell into a fey, bitter laugh, his shoulders heaving in a way that could so easily have been mistaken for a sob.

“I… Kamui, that’s necromancy you’re thinking of,” he sighed. “No, I’m afraid it’s rather less convenient for me than that. Casting the spell drained away a portion of my own magic; I’m fine physically, but there are certain spells I may not be capable of casting anymore.”

It was difficult to say whether that was better or worse. On a selfish level, Kamui was enormously relieved; but this was the second time now that Leo had sacrificed his ambitions as a mage for her. “Oh, Leo. I’m so sorry…”

“Why are _you_ apologising? It was my own stupid fault for not waiting until I could get hold of a functional warp book before we set out to do this. Gods, what _was_ I thinking?” He ran a hand over his brow, combing through his fringe in a little shower of brick-dust. “I’ll start experimenting with Brynhildr when we get back to the castle. I’m praying that I can still use the spells for growing plants, or - oh gods, _Oryza Umbra_ -”

“Leo.” Kamui took his chin in her hand, and lifted his head to look her in the eyes again. “You’re alive. And because you did this, so are Odin and I. Thank you.”

Leo shook his head; when he spoke, his tone was brusque, but all the forced aloofness in the world couldn’t hide the reddening of his ears. “You’re over-dramatising it.”

“Says the man who just compared possibly losing the use of one or two spells to sacrificing his life in battle,” Kamui pointed out. Leo’s face split into his good old mocking smirk at that.

“Oh, I’m sorry, what was it you were on about a few minutes ago? When you were convinced I was actually going to die?” He broke into a gushing falsetto, swooning backwards with his hand on his forehead. “Oh my golly gumdrops, Leo, did you damage your insides when you cast that spell? Is your poor tummy okay? Is your liver turning green, are your toenails falling off?”

“Oh, shut up,” said Kamui, words which might have carried more weight if she hadn’t been laughing so hard. She picked the staff up from the floor. “Anyway, here, I’ll get back to your knee.”

In truth, there didn’t seem to be very much left to do to it. Leo had been sitting with his leg laid limply in front of him, but now he was managing to bend it without any trouble.

“Itches a bit, though,” he put in at one point, rubbing at it with the heel of his hand.

Kamui swallowed. “Am I doing it wrong?”

“No, that’ll just be the effect of the muscles knitting back together, probably.” He attempted another dubious bend and stretch. He had such long, thin legs; Kamui found herself wondering, vaguely, why she’d never noticed that before. “If I have to give up my dream of being prima ballerina at the Cyrkensia opera house I’m blaming you, though.”

“Gods, don’t make me laugh, I’ll mess up the spell.” Kamui whispered one last incantation, and then gave his knee a light pat. “There, that should do it. Does it feel okay?”

He rose gingerly to his feet; Kamui reached out to support him, but he managed to take a few limping steps on his own. “Yes, I’ll manage. Thank you, Kamui.”

“I’d still see a real physician when you get back to the castle,” she cautioned, through gritted teeth, still anticipating the moment when it would turn out that she _had_ made a mistake and he came crashing back down again.

“Will do. Fortunately, dislocations are easier to find mundane explanations for than wounds are. - ah, speaking of.” He took the staff from her, and readied another spell. The white glow of it nearly blinded Kamui as he lifted it to her brow.

“You said it wasn’t anything major, but it could still draw a few Inconvenient Questions,” he explained, pronouncing the last two words with a pointed emphasis that left them capitalised in Kamui’s mind. He was cradling the side of her jaw in his free hand again, holding her head steady as he worked - the hand she’d bandaged last night, when he had given her hope that she could control the rate of her degeneration. Even through the worn leather of his gauntlet, Kamui could faintly feel the warmth of his palm, almost as soothing as the spell he cast with its brother. She felt her eyelids grow heavy, her breathing quieten; the fatigue of the day’s events would be catching up to her, she supposed.

Leo was still holding her face when the red light shining through her eyelids faded to black. When she heaved her eyelids open, he was looking at her with that strange expression again, that gentle, dark-eyed concern. It still warmed and astounded Kamui that, even after everything he’d endured over the course of their failed expedition, his first instinct was to worry after the safety of his companions. She felt the strongest urge, as powerful as her draconic instincts, to embrace him; to hold him close and tell him that everything would be all right, that she would protect him. To lean her forehead against his, and let him rest against her until every last one of his anxieties was soothed away. To take his face in her hands, and draw it to her own, and -

“Kamui?”

Her hand was already on his cheek, her face leaning so perilously close to his, when his shaken whisper pulled her back to reality. Cold comprehension, icy as the rain outside, washed over her.

Kamui did not dare lift her eyes to meet Leo’s. She could already see his confusion and unease in the downward tilt of his mouth, the way his lips were parted in a wordless, disbelieving gape. Even now, a small, ugly part of her noted how easy it would be to close the last few inches of distance between them, to lean forward and brush a kiss to those lips.

But if she did that, as the rest of her brain was so quick to point out, he would think she was disgusting, or insane, or both, and refuse to see her again.

She redirected the kiss to his brow instead, a quick, clumsy peck, and took a brisk step backwards. Leo’s eyes were still wide, but to Kamui’s relief, he looked surprised rather than shocked, and there didn’t seem to be any trace of revulsion there now.

“As thanks for healing me,” she said, as casually as she could. “Anyway, I’m going to go see what’s keeping Odin.”

“Wait, Ka -” Leo raised a hand, but then let it drop again with a sigh. “Yes, I suppose he has been gone a while.”

“Right!” Kamui nodded gratefully, with a smile she hoped didn’t look as fixed as it felt. “So. Off I go, then.”

Leo still didn’t seem to think any the worse of her, but there was an odd hollowness to his voice now. “Godspeed.”

Kamui didn’t need telling twice; she practically bolted for the door.

As soon as she was outside, she fell back against it and sank to the ground, her hand clamped over her mouth as if she was about to vomit. Which, in all honesty, she could quite well have done in that moment.

“Leo,” she muttered against her palm. Even his name seemed almost to burn her tongue. Leo, the fussy snob whose ego had never fully recovered from his having been branded a prodigy. Leo, who went without sleep for days on end, in the name of the studies he conducted for the sake of his people. Leo, who had named her _traitor_ and tried so hard to despise her when she’d defected to Hoshido. Leo, who had only ever blamed himself for the bloodbath that had unfolded because of it, and voluntarily shouldered every burden the dead left behind. Leo, her verbal sparring partner. Leo, her dearest friend.

And she had almost kissed him.

_“When he sees what lies within your heart… he will turn from you. They will all turn from you.”_

Anankos’s words echoed around her mind, over and over and over. At the time, she had assumed that he was talking about her draconic urges, and he probably was, but had he also been referring to this? To the emotions she was only now realising she felt, after - 

Gods, how long _had_ she felt this way? She rummaged through her memories of him - every sarcastic quip; every new book he’d brought for her while she was in the fortress; every fruit and flower he’d grown for her when he was first learning how to use Brynhildr, little pieces of the outside world he promised he’d take her to see with her own eyes one day - searching, with increasing desperation, for a time when she hadn’t. Had there _ever_ been a time when she hadn’t?

Vaguely, Kamui wondered if she ought to cry, but the tears behind her eyes were frozen from the shock. She threw her head back, to let the raindrops run down her face; the sky would have to do her crying for her.

“I love you,” she whispered into the night air. The hiss of the rain swallowed the sound of the words; it was the only time she would ever allow herself to speak them aloud, she resolved. “I love you. Gods help me, Leo, I love you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sorry.
> 
> \- Man, sorry for doing two House Krakenburg-centric chapters in a row; Hinoka will be back on the 30th :)
> 
> \- Fun fact, freezing corpses actually can preserve them for literal millennia. Admittedly the “ice mummies” archaeologists have dug up are still kind of freaky-looking compared to the pseudo-Snow White arrangement Elise has going on; the excuse I’m going to use for that is that it’s MAGIC ice. Incidentally, yes, I do plan to cover Hoshidan funeral traditions in one of next month’s chapters, heh.
> 
> \- The Forest Dragon is actually the dragon whose remains were used to build Fort Dragonfall. This will come up later, so remember that, now!
> 
> \- I’m not sure how common absence seizures actually are as a symptom of social anxiety, or how many people know they’re a thing, so: basically, they’re kind of like dissociative episodes, only instead of mentally transporting to a different place or time, everything just becomes a sort of chaotic blur or blacks out completely, and then when you come out of it, you find yourself in a different place, with little to no memory of how you got there. Like dissociative episodes, though, they’re usually brought on by extreme anxiety, particularly panic attacks and autistic meltdowns. I have a hypothesis that it’s all tied to the “fight or flight” response, and your flight instinct just completely overrides your conscious brain to get you away from whatever’s causing you distress as quickly as possible; but that’s not a medical fact or anything, that’s just me guessing based on my own experiences, so don’t quote that in your dissertation or anything (I mean, unless you’re doing a study on delusional armchair psychologists who act like having Asperger’s automatically makes them an expert on all autistic-spectrum and social anxiety disorders, I suppose).
> 
> \- One of the challenges of writing Shigure is that a child’s priorities are very different to an adult’s. Generally, children have an easier time wrapping their heads around tangible things than abstract concepts; when you’re a kid, if you decide to run away from home (as every kid does at some point, let’s be honest), undefined values like duty and responsibility hardly serve to deter you from that, but the prospects of staying out when it gets dark, or missing dinner, or touching a plant you’ve been told will make you ill, are all Serious Business and should be avoided at all costs.
> 
> \- I can personally vouch for the fact that a dislocated kneecap is one of the worst pains the human body can endure. I still feel guilty about it, but, as stated in the last chapter, these battles are all based on RNG; Anankos rolled a natural 20, so I had to come up with something that’d reflect that, using the resources on hand, without leaving Leo permanently incapacitated. Sorry dude, I swear I love you really! D:
> 
> \- It’s probably fairly obvious, but Anankos wasn’t able to control Kamui’s movements because living dragons are harder to possess than living humans, who are already pretty difficult to control completely.
> 
> \- While Anankos’s telling Kamui that humanity would eventually turn on her was mostly to play with her head, I’m not saying it was also him instinctively warning his child away from what he felt was a dangerous situation, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. Come suffer with me :)
> 
> \- Since it makes absolutely zero sense for a flesh wound to be healed instantly by normal medicine, my headcanon is that elixirs &c are basically just pain relief, and if you want to actually heal the wound you’re better off using staff magic. Owing to both the financial difficulty in procuring enough staves and the ecological issue of using magic willy-nilly like that, staffs are only used in the treatment of injuries that need immediate attention (hence why some supports see the characters mention using salves on their injuries like it’s something they need to keep doing after the fact; those injuries weren’t deemed serious enough to accelerate the healing process with magic, so they’re just a nuisance).
> 
> \- Accounts on the forging of Falchion vary from game to game. In the Jugdral games, as I mentioned earlier, it’s forged from dragonstone, but in Marth’s games, it’s made from one of Naga’s fangs. Which interpretation is the correct one? Well, we’ll find out soon enough…
> 
> \- “Your mastery over the lore of old has no parallel IN THIS WORLD,” - Odin Dark, who has met the Voice of Naga personally


	12. The Last Autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo makes a resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: a graphic description of a past incident involving the loss of an eye, and of the scars that the victim sustained afterwards. Unfortunately, the incident is pretty much integral to multiple characters’ backstories and the development of a romance I haven’t tagged yet, so it’s going to be coming up again in future chapters as well, sorry.
> 
> Also don’t do drugs, mkay?

 

 

 

> _“Dear Aunt Hinoka,_
> 
> _It is snowing lots even though its only fall. Today I got to ride on a WYVERN (Im using katakana because I dont know the kanji for it and Aunt Kamui didnt either, sorry). It was a bit like riding Pochi but the WYVERN was bigger and it didnt have soft feathers. But its scales were very smooth and I thought it would be slimy but it wasnt slimy at all. I drew you a picture of it with my new chalk. Do you know chalk? Its a powdery stick you draw with. I thought it was candy at first but then when I put one in my mouth it was horrible and Aunt Camilla laughed a lot. She says there is a kind of candy that looks like chalk. I think this is a very bad idea for candy. What if someone puts a box of the candy next to their box of chalk and then forgets about it, Oh no! They will end up eating the chalk!!_
> 
> _Im having fun but I miss you lots. Please write me back or come and visit soon._
> 
> _Love from Shigure”_
> 
> \- A letter from Prince Shigure to his aunt, Princess Hinoka of Hoshido, dated December 5th, 1319 (the date is written in Princess Kamui’s handwriting). He wrote frequent letters to his mother’s adoptive family in Hoshido, usually accompanied by chalk drawings. His fascination with wyverns and other flying mounts is a constant feature.

 

“Are you still holding up okay?”

The little boy nodded, although he also burrowed deeper down into the many layers of furs they’d bundled him up in. He’d been harnessed to Camilla, of course, so there was no chance of his falling off; but the sky had been speaking ominously of snow all morning, and she didn’t want him catching a chill up here.

“Where are we flying to?” he asked, the question coming out in a little cloud around his head.

“Well, I promised your father I’d bring you down again at the first sign of snow,” said Camilla. “And it’s a little dangerous to be up here too long at this time of year anyway. So I thought we’d just do a quick circle over the castle for now.”

She had been afraid that he might be disappointed by that, but Shigure nodded sagely. “I guess Father’ll feel left out if he has to just stand and watch us flying for too long.”

Oh, he really was a sweet boy. Camilla had to actively fight the urge to kiss the top of his head. He reached out a mittened hand to pat the side of Marzia’s neck.

“Good girl,” he said, then, “it _is_ a girl wyvern, isn’t it?”

Despite the thinness of the air, Camilla allowed herself a little puff of laughter. “Yes, Marzia’s a girl.”

“Thought so. Girl wyverns are bigger than boy ones, but they have shorter horns and thinner tails,” he explained, with the air of a distinguished professor. “That’s what Aunt Kamui told me. It’s called ‘seckshall die-morfism’.”

Gods, he sounded uncannily like Leo had at that age; both he and Kamui had gone through a similar phase of obsessing over dragons, she remembered fondly. Of course, she also remembered how indignant her little brother would get if he thought she wasn’t taking him seriously when he shared his facts with her, and so she carefully smoothed her repressed giggle into an interested _hmm?_

“You know something?” Shigure continued, in a tone that suggested he was confiding a great secret. “I have a dream where I’m with a dragon sometimes. A big one, not a wyvern. He lives way above the clouds on top of a giant mountain, and he takes me to his cave where all his treasure is.”

“I remember,” Camilla nodded. “You showed me that drawing of him, didn’t you?”

“Mhm. Except…” He went a bit subdued then. “I don’t know if he’s a good dragon or a bad dragon. The dream never says.”

“I don’t think there are any bad dragons anymore,” Camilla assured him. “They all disappeared a long time ago.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Shigure dubiously. “But Aunt Orochi says there’s still one bad dragon left.”

Camilla raised her eyebrow. “Does she?”

“Mhm. She says he eats little boys who don’t wash behind their ears.”

“Ah, so it’s one of _those_.” Camilla mused on this for a moment. “When I was a girl, it was goblins.”

“What?”

“Nothing, dear.” In her mind’s eye, she could see her old nurse insisting that she would be spirited away in the night, never to see her father or Xander again, unless she ate all her peas. She still shuddered at the memory, and prayed that her coat muffled it enough that Shigure wouldn’t notice. “I wouldn’t worry, though. Any bad dragons that came here would have to get past me and Marzia.” She paused, then. “Although you should wash behind your ears anyway.”

Shigure gave a pensive little nod, and settled into a calm silence. The sun still hadn’t risen, and the windows beneath them twinkled warmly, a galaxy of stars below mirroring the ones above almost perfectly. As she’d expected, a light snow had begun to fall, clinging to their hair and furs like downy feathers. The only sounds up here were the chords of the wind, the steady rustle of Marzia’s wingbeats, and a soft humming from Shigure.

“That’s pretty,” Camilla remarked. “Is it a Hoshidan song?”

He shook his head. “It’s my lullaby. Father says Mother used to sing it a lot, and it’s the same one _her_ mother used to sing to her. So it’s Nohrian.”

Well, it certainly wasn’t like any Nohrian song Camilla had ever heard; then again, she supposed, she hadn’t exactly heard many lullabies growing up, aside from the few she had picked up later for Elise.

It was a shame to let the moment end, but the swirl of snow around them had begun to pick up into a more ambitious blizzard, and she did want to be allowed to bring him back up here again. Camilla turned Marzia back in the direction of the stables, where Kaze was just visible as a tiny dot waiting below, silhouetted against the torchlight beaming out from the doorway.

“Are we going back down already?” asked Shigure, in a plaintive little whimper. Camilla restrained herself from hugging him, but couldn’t resist patting his head; with his thick fur hood in the way, it was like stroking a little bear.

“I did promise your father we’d land if it started snowing,” she lamented. “Besides, if we stay out in the cold, with our hair and clothes all wet from the snow, we could get very sick, you see?”

He nodded with a martyred sigh. Marzia was gliding smoothly down to the bridge leading to the stables now. A wicked thought occurred to Camilla.

“Now, I’m going to do something a bit naughty here,” she whispered. “Hold on tight.”

“Huh? What f -”

The question shattered into a squeal of half-frightened laughter, as Camilla spurred Marzia into a charge. They barrelled along the bridge and through the doorway, knocking several knights onto their behinds as they passed. They were both in stitches when Marzia lunged into her stall and ground to an abrupt halt.

“I’m guessing you enjoyed yourself,” said Kaze, coming in to help unbuckle Shigure; he’d managed to dodge the speeding wyvern as nimbly as anyone could expect a ninja to.

Shigure nodded emphatically. “Can we do that again?”

“Maybe when the snow goes off. You’re soaking.” Kaze brushed a dollop of half-melted snow from Shigure’s coat, to emphasise his point.

“I suppose we are, at that,” laughed Camilla. “I’m sorry, Kaze. I know I said I’d - why, whatever’s the matter, darling?”

“Don’t stare, Shigure,” chided Kaze gently; he looked faintly uncomfortable. The little boy was looking up at her through a faceful of wet hair, with his brow furrowed in an odd mix of confusion and… what was that? Revulsion?

It took a moment for comprehension to dawn on Camilla: her hair would be wet too. Slowly, she lifted her hand to the left side of her face; sure enough, her fringe had split from its usual unbroken sheet to hang together in freezing clumps, which of course she hadn’t been able to feel until now.

She clamped her hand flat over the empty socket, and the hard, frozen plaster of scar tissue around it. “Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.”

Shigure’s frown deepened. “Why are you saying sorry?”

Camilla floundered a moment; this definitely wasn’t how most children reacted to seeing her scars. “Well, it isn’t very nice to see, is it?”

“You can’t help it, though,” he pointed out. “That’s what Father said about Uncle Saizou. He’s got a missing eye as well. Except his is still there, and it’s all white and the first time I saw it I screamed and -”

“Which Uncle Saizou was very understanding about, yes,” put in Kaze. Oblivious, Shigure went back over to pet Marzia, singing an odd little shanty about a one-eyed ninja, which didn’t rhyme and sounded as if he’d made it up on the spot (“He’s a one-eyed ninja, riding a one-eyed dragon, going to his job at the tea shop, but don’t drink his tea, he puts wasabi in it…”).

“I’m sorry,” said Kaze gravely.

“Don’t be silly,” Camilla insisted. “It’s just a relief that I didn’t frighten him.”

“As he said, I think he got most of that out of his system the first time he met Saizou.” There was a wry sort of amusement bordering Kaze’s tone.

“Saizo would be your brother, as I take it?” Camilla was more than a little embarrassed to realise that, while she had gone to the trouble of learning the names of all the Hoshidan royals for Shigure’s sake, it genuinely hadn’t occurred to her to ask about Kaze’s family.

Kaze nodded. “Sai _zou_. My elder twin brother. He serves as a retainer to Lord Ryouma.”

“Oh? I don’t believe I saw him at the coronation.”

He laughed. “You wouldn’t have. He is, as Shigure so musically puts it, a one-eyed ninja.”

“Well. I can certainly think of worse ways to lose an eye than guarding one’s liege,” said Camilla diplomatically; she’d never wish such a fate on Beruka or Selena, but based on her understanding of Hoshidan moral values, she figured it was probably the right thing to say. But Kaze shook his head.

“No, he lost his eye in the name of revenge.”

Camilla lifted her hand, again, to the scars, allowing her fingertips to study the thick white welts surrounding her empty eye socket and cross-hatching her left cheek. She pressed her “good” eye shut, trying to dispel the memory of how she’d acquired them: twelve long knife-strokes, each drawn across her slowly, and with a deranged sort of glee.

“What a coincidence,” she mused quietly.

Kaze’s brow knit into a concerned frown; oddly enough, it reminded her a little of Xander. “Camilla…”

“It’s fine. I’d prefer not to discuss the details,” she added quickly, in the midst of the horrified realisation that she hadn’t brought a flask of anything that might help her forget again. But Kaze’s face only grew all the sadder.

“You don’t need to,” he said quietly. “I know.”

In the same way, he didn’t need to elaborate. As far as Camilla knew, her own mother had never tried to do anything more hostile to Azura than forbidding Camilla from speaking to her; but in the months following Arete’s death, her little one had spent more time in the infirmary than out of it, and began to walk with a prominent limp. That her scars from those days should still be visible by the time she was a married woman with a child of her own was hugely distressing, but not remotely surprising.

Camilla swallowed. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine it would have been easy for you to come and live in the place where all that happened to her.”

“It’s not been as difficult as I’d expected it would be,” he said stoically. “The Castle Krakenburg we’ve moved into has been a very different environment to the one she told me about. And to the one where I was to be executed, for that matter. Less oppressive, and more welcoming.”

Oh, it would definitely still be oppressive, if not for the fact that Camilla had made it quite clear that Shigure and his guardians were under her protection, with all that that would imply if any harm came to them. But she probably didn’t need to share that little bit of information with them just yet.

“I’m glad you’re managing,” she said instead. “But I hope you know that I’m here for you, if it ever does get to be too much.”

Kaze looked askance, his mouth pressed into a discomfited little line.

“I’m sorry, dear, did I say something wrong?” asked Camilla.

“Oh, not at all,” he said quickly. “I’m very… flattered by your attentions.” (Although something in his tone suggested that he was only saying so out of politeness.) “But the grief of losing Azura is still too near for me.”

Camilla’s mouth fell open with a horrified gasp. “Oh, that isn’t what I meant at all! No, darling. I’d be the last person to think such a loss could so easily be forgotten.”

Kaze didn’t sigh aloud, but a little of the tension in his shoulders drained away. “Of course not. Forgive me for jumping to that conclusion.”

She raised a concerned eyebrow. “Do you… get many ladies trying to push their attentions on you?”

He nodded wearily. “I know they don’t mean ill by it, but…”

Camilla couldn’t help feeling a bit indignant at that. “It’s still remarkably disrespectful. I’m not sure who I feel more outraged for: you or my poor sister.”

Kaze shook his head. “You don’t need to feel outraged for anyone; though I am grateful for it.”

“Well. Believe me when I say that I only ever intended to bond with you as my brother,” Camilla assured him. “Now, if you could put in a good word for me the next time you see Princess Hinoka, on the other hand…”

He actually laughed at that; a quiet little breath of a laugh.

“I do believe it,” he nodded gratefully. “And you have my thanks for it. And for taking him flying with you today,” he added, with a gesture towards Shigure.

Camilla brushed that aside airily. “Spending time with my favourite nephew is hardly something I’d need to be thanked for.”

“Do you have any other nephews?” piped up Shigure. Marzia had rolled onto her back now, and he was scratching at her belly with both hands.

“Not unless Leo gets himself another cat, no,” Camilla admitted. It was a little sad to think about, really: she had always taken it as a given that any nieces or nephews she might have one day would be Xander’s children. She had supposed it was possible that Kamui or Elise might marry, but it had been difficult enough to imagine her little sisters as adults at all (which, upon reflection, was rather cruelly foresighted in Elise’s case). And Leo…

Leo had been something of a riddle, at first. While far removed from the muscle-bound, lantern-jawed ideal represented by half the knights in the castle, he had been blessed with a sweet face and a silver tongue. When he grew from page to squire, half the girls at court (and half the boys, for that matter) had taken quick notice of him, but their advances seemed to irritate rather than flatter him: Camilla had often been enlisted in rescuing him from more persistent suitors with a variety of carefully-rehearsed excuses. At first, she had assumed it was a kind of celibacy he had imposed on himself, in order to better focus on his studies, or perhaps to avoid becoming like Father; as time went on, she’d begun to wonder if he genuinely lacked any natural interest in romance (although that hypothesis was quickly thrown into doubt when she remembered how bitterly he and Kamui had fought, when they were little, for the privilege of marrying Camilla when they grew up).

He had been seventeen when she finally learned the truth of the matter. They had stopped by the Northern Fortress for another visit; Leo had brought Kamui a new book of piano sheet music that day, as she recalled. Camilla had found them sitting together in the music room, side by side on the wide piano stool, Kamui muddling through the melody while Leo stood by to turn the pages. She had been about to announce herself, perhaps take up the old viol in the corner and make it a duet, but something in her drew her back, and bade her stay to watch them from the doorway. It had only taken a cursory glance at Leo’s face to realise what. What doubts she’d had in her brother’s capacity for romantic love were quite blown away in that moment: the pure adoration in his eyes as he watched Kamui play was as unmistakable as it was heartbreaking. It seemed almost to form a glowing nimbus around him; in seventeen years, Camilla had never seen her little brother look so happy. Or so miserable.

She’d had a blazing row with Xander that night, over whether or not to just tell the poor things they weren’t related. He had insisted that it was out of the question, and that Father would have their heads if they told _anyone_ of Kamui’s parentage (even when Camilla pointed out that, strictly speaking, Father didn’t actually need to hear about it if they did).

“Believe me when I say that keeping this from them sits as ill with me as it does with you,” he’d sighed. “I’ve known of his attachment to her since they were fourteen. Three years I’ve watched him suffer, and could do nothing for him. Because there is nothing any of us _can_ do, except wait and hope our patience goes rewarded.”

He’d been right, of course; Camilla hadn’t known who Kamui’s birth family were at the time, but now that she did, she could understand well enough the need for secrecy. But at the same time, there would always be a part of her that wondered what might have happened if she _had_ told them anyway. If Leo, armed with his sweet face, and his silver tongue, and the knowledge that there was no blood between them, had wooed and won his Kamui - wed her, even; a handfasting didn’t require documentation, or officiation, or even witnesses, to be binding - would things have ended differently for their family? When the war broke out, would a few whispered words and a carefully-kept stock of rue have been enough to entice Kamui to stay in Nohr? Or would Leo have been the one to follow his cherished wife into the sunlight, leaving Camilla doubly betrayed?

This reminiscing and ruminating was brought to an abrupt halt by a drumming of hoofbeats from outside. There was a clatter of armoured limbs snapping hastily from one position to another, as the guards at the door stood to attention.

“Your Grace! You’ve returned!” Their barked chorus was as much a signal to the people in the stables as a mark of deference to the king outside. The staff had already been antsy with Camilla around, but now there was a great whirl of activity as the junior hands dashed about in last-minute efforts to make themselves presentable and the stalls ready.

There was a small buzz of conversation from outside; wherever they went, Leo had always made it as much his business to talk to the servants as to their employers, and took especial care to memorise the names and faces of their own staff (chiefly because, as he was quick to point out, the easiest way to get hold of a noble’s dirty laundry was by charming the people in charge of washing it). Eventually the hoofbeats resumed, and her brother entered, followed by Kamui and Odin.

“Camilla.” He raised an eyebrow at the sight of her.

“Leo, Kamui, you’re alive!” Camilla clapped her hand to her mouth in mock surprise. Leo rolled his eyes.

“By some miracle, yes,” chuckled Kamui ruefully, shaking little splats of half-melted snow out of her fringe. “Well. That and Leo’s magic.”

“And yours,” he pointed out, huffing the words out in a self-conscious, pink-eared cringe. Honestly, for a boy who sought praise as keenly as he did, Leo had always been terrible at accepting compliments when they were given. Then again, the same could be said for Kamui; she shook her head with another self-deprecating laugh, and turned her face from him to cool her burning cheek against the snow clinging to her shoulder.

“And mine!” piped up Odin.

“And yours,” agreed Kamui and Leo, in unison.

Camilla shook her head with fond exasperation. “Gods, look at the three of you. You look like a bag of kittens someone rescued from a well.” Not that she’d ever seen such a thing herself; for many years now, she’d employed a sellsword in the underground to confront anyone carrying any sort of bag or package in the direction of the waters.

In answer, Leo eyed her fringe critically.

“Touché,” she conceded. “Still, you were away for three days this time. Am I allowed to ask what it was about, or…?”

Leo and Kamui exchanged a slightly nervous glance.

“We were looking into a series of incidents involving feral wyverns,” Kamui explained. “Just tracking them in the mountains, that sort of thing.”

“Wyverns?” Shigure’s little head popped up from under Marzia’s wing; she was lying on her stomach now, with her wing-fingers slightly unfolded to hug the little boy to her shoulder. Marzia wasn’t normally up for cuddling with anyone besides Camilla; just as expected, the two of them had really hit it off splendidly.

“It wasn’t as much fun as it sounds,” said Leo quickly, as they dismounted. Camilla couldn’t help noticing the way he favoured one leg as he touched the ground, or the hint of a limp as he turned to pass his horse on to the waiting stable-master.

“Anyway, c’mon, where’s my hug?” Kamui held her arms out to Shigure. According to Kaze, the boy was fine with hugs when they came from someone he knew and trusted well, but he was a cautious child by nature, and it took time to earn that trust.

“Um, give me a minute. Marzia asked for one first,” he said, as he wriggled out of the wyvern’s hold and into his aunt’s. Marzia gave a dejected little growl.

“Were you good while we were away?” asked Kamui. Shigure made a subdued little sound. He would be thinking about the panic he went into yesterday, Camilla supposed. The poor thing had been feeling terribly guilty about it since they’d gone back in from the garden; never mind the facts that Kaze had been watching him from the roofs and rafters the entire time, that the boy had never been in any danger, and that there was no harm done.

“He’s been an absolute joy,” put in Camilla. “As usual.”

“Are you going out again after this?” he asked, when he pulled away. His eyes were wide with unmistakable anxiety.

Kamui’s brow gave a guilty little tug at that. “I’m so sorry; we didn’t mean to stay away as long as we did. But we’ve finished all our errands outside the city, so we’re free to hang out with you now.”

“You finished it? The thing with the wyverns?” Shigure brightened considerably at that.

“Not quite.” Leo bent to Shigure’s eye level - at the waist, rather than the knee. Gods, he’d probably sprained it again. Her poor brother had always been such a delicate, coltish little thing; it made him very lovely to look at, but he was always getting into scrapes because of it. “We actually came to a bit of an impasse with our research, and we can’t proceed any farther until our associate answers our letter.”

Shigure said nothing.

“Leo, he’s four,” Kamui mouthed.

“He has to get his start somewhere,” he protested, but repeated himself in simpler terms anyway. “We got stuck and can’t do any more until the guy who was helping us writes us back.”

“Oh.” Shigure nodded. “How long will that take?”

Kamui shrugged. “At least a week, I expect. So we’ll be taking a break for a while, if there’s anything you want to do.”

“Well, strictly speaking I can’t take breaks,” Leo began, but Kamui shot him a sly grin.

“You can’t spare a minute to teach your successor how kinging works? After all, that is why we brought him over here,” she said, rather pointedly.

“All I’m qualified to teach anyone about that is that ‘kinging’ isn’t a word,” he sighed. “But I suppose there’s no law stating that my desk work has to be done at my desk.”

“In that case, I want to play the piano, and hide in the cave under the table, and show you Aunt Elise’s garden…”

Shigure continued chattering away excitedly to his aunt and uncle for the next several minutes, about everything he’d been up to while they were away (some of it even concerned non-dragon-related activities). Leo took in this recitation with as much respect as a speech from a foreign dignitary; he was probably, Camilla mused fondly, remembering how he himself had been at that age, at the height of his own “dragon phase”. Actually, Kamui had gone through that phase as well, and around the same time; Camilla lifted her gaze from Shigure to see if her sister was feeling similarly nostalgic.

Kamui’s eyes were soft and dark with affection; her entire face was alight with a gentle smile. But she wasn’t looking at their nephew.

At first, Camilla wondered if she was reading too much into it; if Kamui was smiling at the memory of what an endearing child Leo had been, just as Camilla herself had. But the more she studied her little sister’s face, the surer she became: there was no sisterly reading for the trembling light in her eyes, the slight parting of her lips, the warm glow dusting her ears and cheeks.

Camilla won the ensuing battle with her face, and managed to wrestle her grin into a refined smile, but inside her head she was cackling.

Well, now. Wasn’t this an interesting development?

 

* * *

 

Not that she was any authority on how best to pull off a life of crime, but Hinoka couldn't help thinking that the Divine Dragon’s Forest seemed a downright odd place to put a bandit stronghold.

“You’re not wrong,” Orochi concurred. “For a start, the only people you get coming out here on the regular are the monks, and I can’t imagine they’d have anything on them worth pinching.”

“Speak for yourself,” Azama retorted brightly, patting the pack he bore on his shoulders.

“Why, what do you have?” asked Hinoka; half out of genuine curiosity, and half out of a suspicion that anything he considered valuable should probably be confiscated.

“A lifetime’s worth of good karma and positive spiritual experiences,” said Azama airily. Hinoka shot him a dubious stare, which he blithely ignored.

“Anyway, there’s more to banditry than stealing,” Shura explained. “Back when I worked for him, the fort here was mostly used as a base for storing stuff he planned to sell on the black market later. Pipe-weed and such, you know.”

“And he was doing all this right under the monks’ noses?” asked Orochi. “You’d think people would notice an occupied fort in the middle of a major religious site.”

Shura snorted. “Not this one, they wouldn’t. But when you know what you’re looking for, let’s just say it’s pretty hard to miss.”

A silence descended for a moment.

“How d’you reckon Yukimura’s holding up?” asked Hinoka, then.

Orochi raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, you left Shiro with him, right?”

“Oh! No, I left him with Ryouma,” said Orochi blithely. “But it’s okay, he only had two meetings today.”

Hinoka wasn’t sure whether the mental image of Ryouma meeting his ministers with a baby harnessed to his chest was mortifying or hilarious. Perhaps a little of both.

“I guess it’s good work experience for the kid,” she mumbled aloud, before following it up with a silent prayer to the Dawn Dragon, begging Her to preserve her brother’s sanity.

They had set out a good five or six hours ago, on foot. There was a dusty path that the monks had laid out, leading to the Dawn Dragon’s shrine at the top of a hill rising up from the heart of the forest, that would have been wide enough for horses; but as Shura had pointed out, if they were going to take the public road to Kazama’s door, they’d do as well to knock and state their business when they got there. So instead they pushed and tugged their way through thigh-high grass and gold-leaved bushes, skirting trees with trunks as broad as stable-stalls and branches that bowed low enough to trail along the ground in heavy red curtains.

Hinoka was still enjoying the walk enormously, even after having been at it for so many hours. She had almost forgotten how it felt to spend an entire day marching; to fend off the chill in the air just by moving her body; to propel herself to places that looked inconceivably far-off while standing still, with nothing more than a bending and stretching and flexing of a few muscles, and to know that it was by the strength of those muscles that she had come so far. If anything, it was an effort to avoid getting too far ahead of the others: she felt like she could have sprinted to the fort without running out of wind, if she’d known the way.

That said, their surroundings were certainly worth taking her time for. This forest had once been the home of the Dawn Dragon Herself, and looking around, Hinoka could readily believe it. While the trees grew high and dense, it wasn’t dark beneath them: sunlight still filtered through the leaves, casting a warm glow over the roots and trunks below; it streamed through the gaps between branches in precise, triangular rays outlined with faint rainbows, like the reflections shed by cut crystal when you held it up to the window; but, more than that, it seemed almost to emanate from the trees’ golden bark itself. The air tasted sweet, rich with the smell of dry grass and crisp autumn winds (although the forest was almost eerily still, save for the chanting of kinshi far above, and the occasional lazy descent of a leaf or a feather). Even the soil itself felt gentle; it was so soft and springy underfoot that Hinoka could barely feel her heels hitting the ground.

Of course, not everyone was managing to keep their footing as easily as she did, as a muffled cry from further back was quick to remind her. “Um, Lady Hinoka…?”

Gods, _again_?

Orochi chuckled ruefully, as Hinoka skipped to a halt in front of her. “Setsuna again?”

“Third one today,” Hinoka sighed. “You two go on ahead, we’ll catch up once we’ve dealt with this.”

Azama chortled. “What’s with the royal ‘we’?”

“It’s a common ‘we’. I’m not leaving you unsupervised with these poor people,” said Hinoka flatly.

Shura’s brow furrowed. “Huh. Kazama didn’t go in for pitfalls much. Maybe it _is_ a different gang after all.”

“Nah, this is just… a Setsuna thing. I’ll explain later.” Hinoka turned from them with an awkward, apologetic wave, and dragged Azama back through a particularly confrontational wall of bushes they’d just cleared, with a string of muttered swearwords. Once they were back on the other side, she scanned the ground for any hint of her retainer; with the grass as tall as it was, it was harder than usual to spot the hole, but eventually she managed to make out a flash of blue in the middle of all the amber. “Setsuna, where - dammit, Azama, you’re right next to her!”

Azama knelt down beside the pitfall, but he seemed more interested in the mushrooms growing over a tree root close by it. Slowly, _v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y_ , he swivelled his head, without tilting it, to face Setsuna; when it reached a ninety-degree angle, he regarded her thoughtfully for a moment, gave her a mild little wave (which she returned cheerfully), and went back to picking his mushrooms.

Hinoka sighed, and stomped over to attend to Setsuna herself. She ran the sheathed blade of her naginata along the ground in front of her as she went, to preemptively spring any other traps that might be waiting in the grass; it was a technique she had tried to teach Setsuna several times, but there didn’t seem to be any way of making the lesson stick.

Setsuna was leaning out over the brink of the hole, with her head resting on her elbows, when Hinoka reached her.

“Here, Setsuna, I’ll - wait, how are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” asked Setsuna pleasantly.

“Hanging by your elbows like that,” said Hinoka; then, with a horrible sinking feeling, “that _is_ what you’re doing, right?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I’m just standing here.” Setsuna mumbled absently.

Hinoka shuffled closer, and peered over the edge of the pit. Setsuna’s feet were flat on the ground, and she was only buried up to her armpits.

“You know, it’d probably be fairly easy to climb out of that one yourself,” she pointed out, with a patient half-smile.

Setsuna gave an easy shrug. “It’s fine, Lady Hinoka. If I’m slowing you down, I can just wait here, and you can pick me up on the way back…”

“No, that’s not…” Hinoka trailed off with a defeated sigh. “Okay, hold on.”

She hefted Setsuna out of the hole by the armpits, like rescuing a cat from a river. Once that was done, she turned to Azama.

“You know, you really could have helped her out yourself, instead of just sitting there picking… wait, what kind of mushrooms are those?” They certainly weren’t like any Hinoka had ever seen; they were about the size and shape of rice-bowls, and their wide caps were a suspicious shade of muddy orange.

Azama chortled at that. “Well, when you think about it, by sitting here, I _was_ helping her. If you hadn’t seen me here, you might not have spotted her. Anyway, in answer to your question: these are the kind of mushrooms that grow in the Divine Dragon’s Forest.”

Hinoka’s eyes narrowed. “They aren’t, uh… _weird_ mushrooms, are they?”

He spread his hands in a serenely apathetic gesture. “Spiritually speaking, is there really such a thing as a ‘weird’ mushroom? They are, after all, a part of the natural world. If you look at it like that, surely it’s part of the gods’ design for us that I should take these mushrooms they have provided me, and eat them just before my evening meditation.” The widening of his grin as he said that was downright worrying.

“I’m ordering you not to,” said Hinoka flatly.

“Okay.” Azama nodded sagely. “I’ll eat them before my morning one tomorrow, and start the day as I mean to go on. You finally had your first good idea, Lady Hinoka! Ah, they grow up so fast…”

Hinoka gave up on trying to press the issue any further. “Please yourself, then. Just try not to take too long; the others are probably way ahead of us by now.”

When she’d frogmarched her retainers back along the trail, though, they found Orochi and Shura waiting quite close by, in the middle of a hushed discussion.

“So isn’t it going to hurt your reelection chances?” Orochi was asking. “If word gets out that you used to run with the guy who killed Lady Mikoto.”

“And that would be my other reason for coming along as your guide, besides revenge,” Shura nodded. “I’d rather make sure people know that I’m trying to atone for the things I’ve done, than act like they never happened. There’ll always be people who judge me for my past - and they’ll be right to - but they’d judge me worse if I tried to cover it up.”

“Fair enough.” Orochi’s tone turned a little sly, then. “So when do I get to find out what the job that made you ditch him was, then?”

“Er.” Shura’s gaze darted from one direction to the other; it was at this moment that he spotted Hinoka. “Ah, Lady Hinoka!”

“Sorry to keep you.” She released her grip on Setsuna and Azama’s elbows, and hurried over. “I got Setsuna out of the pitfall, but then Azama found these weird orange mushrooms, and -”

“Ooh, laughing caps?!” Orochi rubbed her hands together gleefully. “Please tell me you picked them.”

“Yeah, he insisted on it,” mumbled Hinoka. She didn’t know what Orochi would want with them, and with a name like _laughing caps_ , she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “Anyway, are we getting close yet?”

“Yep, we’re here.” Shura tweaked a trailing branch aside, like a curtain opening on a view of the hill leading to the shrine.

Hinoka frowned. “The bandits made their stronghold _in_ the shrine? Wouldn’t that make it really hard to cover their tracks?”

He shook his head. “Not in it. _Under_ it.”

“The entire hill is the fort?” It seemed laughably obvious, now that she thought on it. Every child in Hoshido knew the story of the cave the Dawn Dragon hid Herself in, to escape from the other dragons when they tried to force their war on Her. It was the whole reason this hill, and this forest, were considered sacred in the first place. The entrance She had used had been sealed up, after the first Hoshidan princesses had persuaded Her to come back out; but the hollow passages inside would still be there, and finding a new entrance to them would only take a bit of digging. Hinoka had never thought of herself as devoutly religious, but the idea of the Dawn Dragon’s cave being used to store stolen gold, or weird mushrooms, or whatever this Kazama was dealing in, struck her as extremely distasteful.

“So,” she said briskly. “How do you want to do this?”

 

* * *

 

Gods, he’d tried everything.

He had conjured so many trees and crops and flowers that his room could have passed for a flourishing hothouse. He had amused himself, while he was waiting for Niles to finish drawing his bath, by lighting and snuffing the candles floating around his head. He had levitated the soap dish and the razor as high as the ceiling-beams, and sent them both whizzing around the room (and then he had managed to fix the window without leaving anyone the wiser). He had dried his hair with Odin’s wind spell, heated his straightening irons with a fire cantrip, and then drenched himself anew when he very stupidly attempted to perform the Radiant Dusk technique on his cold bathwater.

As far as Leo could tell, he had gone through his entire repertoire of spells - all the ones he used on a daily basis, at any rate - and didn’t seem to be crippled in his ability to cast any of them. If he’d been less paranoid by nature, he might have been relieved at that; but when you grew up in the Nohrian court, you quickly learned to cultivate paranoia as a necessary skill for survival. He definitely felt a change in himself: up until now, Leo had always felt like his insides were made of lightning, the raw magical energy in his veins a buzzing current that could effortlessly power anything he applied it to. Some of that power still crackled in his pulse, and probably still more sharply than the average person would be able to feel; but it wasn’t what it had been, and that was enough to alarm Leo.

With a disgusted sigh at how very promptly his slippers had flown over when he summoned them, he dumped Brynhildr unceremoniously onto his pillow, closely followed by his face. There really ought, he mused with some annoyance, to be a little list of numbers he could look at, like the ones in Odin’s game, to tell him how weak or powerful his magic was in terms of scales and percentages, and which spells he would or wouldn’t be powerful enough to cast.

Still, he had wasted enough time and energy on that fruitless expedition. Sitting around fretting about it was only going to make him even more hideously unproductive than he had been already. Leo slipped his feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor again, in a sullen, slithering motion, and heaved himself upright, grimacing slightly as his weight shifted onto his knees. He had plenty of things he could be doing while he waited to see what was to be done about the Fire Emblem, he reminded himself. Even a cursory glance around his personal quarters picked out seedlings that wanted repotting, paperwork that wanted filling out, and dog-eared books on law and economics and botany that wanted finishing.

And so, naturally, he ignored all of them, in favour of scribbling down the following note:

_Nyx,_

_I know you told me not to speak of our dealings with Our Mutual Friend in writing, but we have lately returned from our expedition, and it was an unmitigated disaster. The item we had procured for him shattered as soon as he touched it; we are waiting to hear back from the Rainbow Sage, regarding the possibility of its repair. Our Mutual Friend himself was otherwise gravely indisposed, and it seems unlikely that he will be able to leave the house in the meantime, but he may still be able to communicate through correspondence with his other associates._

_And now I must ask a favour, for which I am prepared to face the full force of your most scathing condemnation; it was indeed a very stupid thing I did. For reasons I shan’t go into (because I daresay you’d only get even more annoyed with me), I attempted to warp three people without the use of a tome, drawing the energy to power the spell from the reserves within myself. As far as I can tell, there has been no change to my repertoire, but still I cannot shake the feeling that something is different; does the Academy have any information on what changes when one attempts to cast a more obscure spell unaided?_

_With regards and apologies, L._

Once the note was folded and sealed, he pocketed it and, since he was headed for the aviary anyway, figured he may as well go pester Kamui over whether she had written her letter to the Sage yet. If she had, they could go together; the aviary was one of the places she had asked him to describe the most often while she was in the fortress, and Leo was quite anxious not to miss her reaction to seeing it in person for the first time.

Where the corridors in the royal family’s quarters were always deserted, save for the occasional butler or maid coming in to clean, the ones beyond the throne room were more colourfully populated. Aristocrats, outfitted as fashionably as their tightened belts would allow, meandered about in packs, using errands or strolls as a cover for the kind of scurrilous gossip that had once been Leo’s own stock-in-trade, in the days before he was demoted to king. Servants darted in and out of the great hall’s wide doors, armed with mops and buckets and the afternoon’s dirty lunch dishes. Squires coming in from the training grounds clanked their way back to the barracks, red-faced, bandy-legged and dripping sweat, but still addled with enough ill-advised adolescent confidence to openly gawk and whistle at every cluster of disgusted ladies they passed.

Everyone scrutinised Leo rather carefully as he strode past them, but he thought little of it; he had always drawn his share of stares as a prince, so it was only to be expected that he’d draw more of them now. He also studiously rose above the faint echo of snickering that followed him down the hallway and around the corner. Probably some satirist had written another wildly popular farce about him. Satirical papers were something of a novelty at the moment, both at court and in the lower town - as, indeed, were serious political commentaries. Father had always answered both rather violently; it was one of the policies Leo had been quickest to change, and naturally, the city’s writers and illustrators had chosen to break in their newfound freedom of press by viciously mocking their new king’s other policies. Of course he preferred this outcome to the continued repression of ideas (and to be honest, some of the cleverer satirical organs _were_ pretty hilarious; even Niles had taken out a subscription to _The Pungent Bulb_ ), but a small, touchy part of him did rather wish that they’d show a little more gratitude to the man who had made it possible in the first place. But then, he supposed, if satire only punched down at people in the lower sectors of society, while showing preferential treatment to those at the top, that would defeat the purpose of its being satire. Besides, it was useful to know what the general public thought he was doing wrong, rather than only hearing the opinions of his appointed ministers; as long as they weren’t inciting revolution, Leo didn’t see what harm it did to anything besides his pride.

When at last he reached the east wing, it would have been easy enough to identify Kamui’s room even if he hadn’t known which one it was: a strain of piano music could be heard drifting out from behind her door. Well, calling it _music_ was perhaps a tad over-generous; it was a simple sarabande, played slower than it should be and (judging by the pauses between notes) with one hand.

The playing skidded to a discordant little halt when he knocked. There was a muffled exchange in Hoshidan. Probably Kamui was teaching Shigure to play; according to her letters, the promise of a piano had been one of the things that had sold him on coming to Nohr in the first place.

Jakob came to the door, not even bothering to repress his sigh of exasperation.

“What the hell is it this time, Ni - oh, Lord Leo.” There was a visible flicker of relief over his face; Leo raised an eyebrow at that.

“Does Niles come to see Kamui often?” he asked, in an undertone.

“No, he comes to pester me. It’s bordering on harassment,” said Jakob bluntly.

“Sounds about right,” Leo nodded ruefully. “He hazes everyone who works here. It’s just his way of getting the measure of people. Usually he gives over after the first few weeks; if he carries on after that, I’ll talk to him.”

Jakob bristled, puffing himself up like Siegkat at her most affronted, but nodded. “If you please.”

He stood aside to let the king pass.

By the looks of it, Kamui’s quarters were laid out fairly similarly to Leo’s. The outer door led into a general sitting-room; it was perhaps a little smaller than Leo’s study, but also a good deal tidier. The space was dominated by a polished ebony piano in the approximate middle of the floor. A few internal doors punctuated the walls on either side, presumably leading to the rooms in which Kamui and her retainers slept. Her windows were narrower than his - even when she was out of the fortress, Father still meant to keep her relatively confined, Leo mused grimly - but her fireplace burned with a wood fire rather than a magic one, which lit the room more warmly than the blue light in his own. A heavy copper kettle whistled to itself over the fire, and the table in the corner of the room was laid out with brioche rolls and yellow cream; it seemed he’d managed to drop in just as they were setting up for tea.

“Leo!” As expected, Kamui had been sitting at the piano with Shigure; but now she rose sharply, too sharply, from the stool, and ended up bumping her knees into the front of the keyboard. It struck the strings under the lid in an echoing chord, almost as if the piano itself was wincing.

Leo raised a concerned eyebrow at that. “You okay?”

“Ah - yes, I’m fine,” Kamui cringed; she seemed to have grown a little flustered. “Um. I’m sorry, I’m kind of in the middle of Shigure’s piano lesson right now, so…”

“Of course. I can come back later, if -”

“No!” Kamui blurted out hastily; she winced at the sound of her own voice, and shook her head with an apologetic grimace. “No, I’m sorry, we’re almost done. I’ll be with - sorry, I’ll _talk_ to you in a moment.” She gestured to the tea table, where Gunter and her other retainer were already sitting. “Please, make yourself at home. - I mean, I guess you _are_ at home since you own the castle, but… well, you know.”

Gods, she was babbling even more than she usually did. Come to think of it, she had been like this for most of the ride back from the Canyon. At the time, Leo had supposed it was the shock of everything that had happened in Valla catching up to her, but now he thought he could see a faint flush to her cheeks, a ragged heaving in her shoulders.

“Kamui, are you ill?” he asked flatly. He was about to come closer, to feel her brow, but decided against it; even if she did have a temperature, she’d probably rather have it checked by her retainers, than some degenerate who would stoop low enough to use her physical illness as an excuse to put his hands on her.

In any case, she quailed slightly from him, and shook her head vigorously with another uneasy laugh. “No, I’m fine. Just overtired, I think. - Jakob, if you could make my brother some tea?”

She put a peculiar sort of emphasis on the word _brother_. It stung his heart a little - Leo couldn’t remember her ever calling him that since the end of the war - but he reminded himself that he’d rather stay in her life as a brother, than be cast forever out of it as a rejected suitor. With this in mind, he bit back his sigh as best he could, and went to sit with Gunter.

“Hello, Gunter,” he said, in a voice that, miraculously, made him sound like he wasn’t wishing the ground would swallow him up. “And… Mozu, was it?”

The girl nodded mutely; she seemed pretty flustered too, although in her case it seemed less like a fever and more like the way most servants reacted when he addressed them directly.

“Lord Leo,” Gunter inclined his head in a shadow of a bow, and reached for the teapot. “You timed your visit well. Here, I’ll just -”

“Oh, Mister Gunter!” Mozu squeaked, scrambling to seize the handle before he could. “We talked about this, remember?”

“I hardly think pouring a cup of tea is going to have any effect on me,” the old man assured her.

Mozu’s brow knit in confusion. “But Lady Kamui said you weren’t to touch any kind of running water.”

“Oh, is this about his, ah…?” Leo gesticulated for a moment, ostensibly having forgotten the word, but actually probing for the version of the story Kamui had given to her retainers.

“The curse those rogue sorcerers put on him, yeah,” said Mozu. “Can’t have him getting dragged back to their spooky fortress, can we?”

Leo made a mental note to lecture Kamui on the importance of feasibility when crafting a lie later.

“Regardless, as galling as it is to say it, the old man has a point,” put in Jakob. “It’s only an issue if he touches the water directly. As long as we’re supervising him, pouring the tea shouldn’t be too dangerous.”

“Alternatively,” Gunter remarked drily, “ _you_ could pour the tea, as a gesture of respect and admiration for your aged mentor.”

Jakob gave a disgusted snort. “But if you insist upon my being in charge of the tea, you have no right to complain about the way I make it.”

“If you’re that happy to wallow in your mediocrity, that’s fine by me,” said Gunter pleasantly.

“ _I’m_ making the tea,” Mozu interrupted, pouring it out before they could start getting too catty. “And if you don’t like it, that’s your own fault for being fusspots.”

“So you’ve both been watching him the entire time we were away?” Leo was a little relieved to hear it, honestly. Kamui did say she’d put her retainers up to that, but he had been half-expecting to come back to the news that Gunter had disappeared in the middle of the night.

“Round the clock!” said Mozu, with a soldierly nod. “Well. Jakob’s been watching him round the clock. I’ve just been sort of helping out here and there.”

“And to be perfectly frank, we both deserve a raise,” Jakob retorted. “The old coot’s been running us ragged. I feel almost as decrepit as he is.”

“Aye, and you’re not wearing your years half so well,” put in Gunter.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Jakob responded. “In any case, I’ve never actually heard of a curse where people are abducted by water spirits under the command of the caster.” (Neither had Leo; he was trying to come up with a way to make the lie sound more convincing when the butler continued.) “I trust it can be broken?”

“Yes, yes it can,” Leo assured him, hoping his relief didn't show in his tone. “We’re working on that at the moment. It’s actually what I came here to discuss with Kamui.”

“And I should hope so, too. As long as he can pass a day without soiling himself, he shouldn’t be my responsibility.” Jakob’s tone was brusque, as were the words at first glance; but the implication regarding what he intended to do when old age did completely catch up to Gunter betrayed the concern that lay underneath.

It was a concern Leo could readily relate to: aside from Xander, Gunter had been the closest thing Leo had had to a father growing up. To Father as he had been, anyway, in the days before Anankos. Much as he’d never admit to it openly (he had mentally self-flagellated over the ill-advised sentimentality of it all the way to the Academy), that had been a major part of his reason for sparing Gunter in Valla. Even carrying on as they were - in the knowledge that, if Anankos forced Gunter to act in ways that would make him a danger to those around him, Leo and Kamui would have to cut him down twice in immediate succession, before the dragon had time to seize full control - felt eerily like watching the other two slip away from him again. Like watching as Father’s mood swings grew more erratic, and he began to forget his children’s names; like watching Xander’s philosophy slowly become harsher, more belligerent, and more recklessly self-destructive, as the war made him more and more accustomed to seeing traitors everywhere. Leo had let both of them fall to ruin then; he wouldn’t make the same mistake a third time.

“Your tea’s getting cold,” Gunter pointed out, startling the king out of his perseverations.

“Ah - thanks, I was just lost in thought for a moment.” Leo reflexively took a sip of his tea, and regretted it immediately: it was, indeed, stone cold.

“Twenty moments, more like. Still, I suppose you always were a pensive child.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Leo wryly. He couldn’t have been out of it for very long, anyway: Kamui and Shigure were still playing the piano. Rather, Shigure was playing it; Kamui seemed to be making rather more mistakes than she did normally. It sounded, alarmingly enough, like her hands were shaking.

Still, if Kamui was distracted, that did give Leo a chance to try a little experiment.

“So I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you heard much from, er…” He cast a quick glance at Jakob and Mozu, which confirmed that they were both bent over the political cartoons in this morning’s _Pungent Bulb_. “Our mutual friend, shall we say?”

Gunter closed his eyes, and rubbed a hand back and forth over his brow, folding and stretching his worry lines into a series of parabolas. “He’s still feeling under the weather. But he still has some… errands that he means to take care of.”

Leo nodded grimly, but kept his tone light and casual. “Oh? What sort of errands?”

“He means to - ngh…” Gunter’s jaw clamped shut; he was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth, as if resisting every word he forced out. “He won’t tell me. But I have a feeling you should see to that repair job quickly.”

Leo nodded again. “Right. Thanks, Gunter.”

Instinctively, his eyes wandered back to Kamui; this time, though, she was looking back at him. He shot her a quick smile; there was an ear-splitting crash over the keys as she hastily broke eye contact with him.

“You’re playing a lot of wrong notes today,” Shigure observed, with all the gentle tact one would expect from a small child.

“I guess I am, at that,” Kamui cringed. “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you should end the lesson there for today?” Gunter called over to her. “He seems to have picked it up well enough already.”

“N-no, it’s fine, I…” Her gaze moved from Gunter’s face to Leo’s; perhaps he was imagining it, but he could have sworn the flush to her cheeks deepened when her eyes met his. He tilted his head to the side, his own eyes widened with concern; but they only held each other’s gaze for a moment, before she bowed her head with a defeated sigh.

“You okay to take a break?” she asked Shigure. In answer, he sprang from the stool and made a beeline for the tray of brioche. At the very least, she smiled at that.

The smile had faded into a grimace when she reached the table. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.”

“No, I’m the one who interrupted Shigure’s lesson,” Leo pointed out; then added, half as a musing to himself: “He shows a lot of potential.”

“He’s his mother’s son, through and through,” Kamui agreed, a little ruefully. She was babbling less now, but her hand was still shaking as she spooned a dollop of cream onto her brioche. “Anyway, I hope it wasn’t anything urgent?”

“No, I just came to ask if you’d written the letter yet.” Leo stopped, then. It was only now, when he was saying it out loud, that he realised how _stupid_ it sounded: going to all the bother of barging into Kamui’s quarters and interrupting their nephew’s lesson, just to ask if she had posted a letter. But Kamui clapped her hands together, and nodded. She almost looked relieved.

“Ah! Yes, I have it here.” She went over to the writing-desk perched unobtrusively against the far wall, and retrieved an envelope, which she held out to him. Judging by the erratic slant of her handwriting, she had been shaking when she wrote the letter too. “I was actually going to send it as soon as we’d finished the lesson. Shigure wrote a letter for Hinoka as well, so I figured we’d kill two birds with - ha, gods, _that’s_ an inappropriate expression in this context…”

“I could show you to the aviary, if you want?” Leo offered. “I had other things to send off anyway.”

“Well, only if you _were_ going anyway,” said Kamui. “I mean - don’t go out of your way.”

“Kamui, the fate of the world depends on this letter,” Leo pointed out flatly. “Under the circumstances, I think I can find room in my schedule to see that it’s sent.”

Kamui laughed at that, but it wasn’t her usual chuckle. This one was higher, and thinner; nervous laughter, rather than genuine mirth. Gods, why was she so much on edge today?

“Guess I can’t argue with that. Shigure,” she piped up. The little boy turned to look at them, his upper lip covered with a little cream moustache. “Shall we post your letter once you’ve finished that?”

 

* * *

 

All things considered, Leo was profoundly grateful that Kamui had invited Shigure along. He was still keen to show Kamui the aviary, but being alone with her was always a rather daunting prospect, particularly in such a remote part of the castle. With their free hands laced tightly into their nephew’s, guiding him from either side up the steep twist of the tower’s staircase to keep him from falling, Leo was spared any temptation to reach for Kamui’s hand himself.

Besides, he hadn’t had many opportunities to interact with Shigure yet. Aside from his own anxieties that Shigure should be happy here here (born of both empathy for the boy’s plight and, on a purely selfish level, curiosity about his nephew), it was important that Leo should do what he could to secure the trust and loyalty of his heir for political reasons. There were many at court who disapproved vocally of Nohr’s being ruled by a bastard, and just as many who resented the thought of a king who was half-Hoshidan. Both sides were more than capable of arranging an “accident” for the king they didn’t want, if not outright staging a coup in the other’s name. Camilla had made it clear, through her interactions with Shigure, that he was under their protection; for Leo to build a similar rapport with the boy would do little to shield himself from assassins, but at the very least, he could charm Shigure away from the prospect of serving as a figurehead to an open campaign against his uncle.

“So how are your lessons going?” he tried. It occurred to him after he’d said it that this was probably the last thing a little boy would want to talk about, even one as bookish as Shigure, but he hadn’t been able to think of anything else.

But Shigure seemed happy enough to answer. “I think they’re going okay. I finished my reading-book today.”

“Oh? Which book was that?” Leo tried not to sound openly relieved; literature, at the very least, was a subject he could discuss with anyone.

“ _The Lay of Siegfried and Brynhildr_.”

“Ah, yes,” Leo nodded. “How did you find it?”

Shigure made a puzzled little sound. “I didn’t. Aunt Kamui gave it to me.”

“He means ‘did you like it?’” Kamui explained, in a voice edged with suppressed laughter.

“Oh. Yes, I guess it was okay. It had dragons in it,” said Shigure, in a tone that indicated that the inclusion of dragons was the most important factor in any story. Well, Leo supposed he’d thought the same at that age. “But…”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “But?”

“Well, there was a picture of a dragon on the first page, so I thought it would be all about the dragons. But then when you read the words, it’s just a _kissing_ book,” said Shigure, his voice dripping with disgust. “The dragons are barely even in it.”

Ahead of them, Kamui’s head bowed, and her shoulders began to shake.

“Yes, they really should have focussed more on the dragons,” Leo concurred, deadly serious. He may not know much about interacting with children in general, but he knew damn well what he had thought of any adults who’d patronised him when he was that age. “Perhaps you’d prefer _The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light_. As the title suggests, the dragons are much more active players in that one.”

“And one of the main characters is a sky knight,” Kamui added.

Shigure considered this for a moment.

“Does it have kissing?” he asked dubiously.

“Not until the very end,” Leo assured him. “I’ll have a copy brought to you later, if you want.”

Shigure nodded vigorously. Well, at the very least the crown prince was a gentleman of taste, Leo mused.

The sun had just lately set when they reached the top of the stairs and turned onto the landing that led to the aviary’s doors. The twilit sky was still fairly bright - brighter than the night sky, anyway - but it was a greyish, wintry brightness that made the castle’s twisting pillars and carved walls look as if they had been blown from silver glass. Shigure’s eyes had already lit up as he took in the sight of it - Kamui had said that he was quite the aesthete, come to think of it.

“It’s so _pretty_ up here,” he whispered, half to himself, as he paused to examine a tapestry of Merewif, stitched in threads of blue and silver - it had always been a favourite of Elise’s, too, as Leo recalled.

“Ha, you haven’t seen the aviary itself yet.” Despite himself, Leo found himself grinning as he heaved the creaking iron doors open.

The light in the corridor had been picturesque enough, but it was nothing to the light of the vast eastern window here. Well, it was _called_ a window, but in practice it was almost more of a balcony: it took up almost the entire wall, and was almost entirely unleaded, save for a rose tracery near the top of the arch. It made the aviary seem almost monochromatic; a room built of pale stone, hewn with black-iron cages and carpeted by some twenty or thirty glossy black birds.

The ravens sang out a chorale of _Nevermores_ at them when they entered. Their cage doors had been left open today, and the majority of them were outside, striding over the flagstones in purposeful circuits or flapping lazily about the ceiling.

Kamui and Shigure stood silent in the doorway for a long moment, both wearing identical expressions of amused wonderment. Leo just barely managed not to laugh openly as he nudged Kamui gently forward with one hand, secured the door with the other, and pushed back an errant bird trying to make a break for freedom with his foot.

“There’s so many of them!” cried Shigure; then, with a slightly anxious glance at Leo, “Um. Do they bite?”

“Only if you bother them when they want to be left alone. The ones coming up to you shouldn’t be a problem.” Here he shot a pointed glance at one particular little dastard, who had elected to stay in his cage, and who had been the bane of Leo’s existence (and his fingers) since he was thirteen.

With that, Shigure waded out into the throng with his arms raised over his head, laughing nervously as the birds hopped over to inspect him. Kamui seemed to be drawing similar attention to herself: when Leo turned back to her, she was kneeling in a little knot of black feathers, with a few bolder ones trying to climb into her lap or onto her shoulders. Where Shigure’s laughter had been nervous, though, hers was just joyous; when she lifted her head to meet Leo’s gaze (displacing a raven who had been trying to perch on her hairband in the process), her entire face was aglow, her eyes glittering.

“It’s exactly like you always described,” she grinned warmly, before breaking off to coo at the birds jostling for her attention again. “Although he didn’t tell me you were such sweethearts. Did he? He didn’t mention that at all, no!”

“They’re only doing that because they think you’ll feed them, you know,” said Leo drily.

“You’re just jealous because they like me better than you,” she retorted, with a laugh that quickly softened from wicked to wistful. “I just… I can’t believe I’m actually here.”

“Didn’t I always say I’d bring you, though?”

“Well, yes, but…” Kamui’s smile was still there, still warm, still radiant; but now there was a shadow of regret behind it. “I don’t know. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it to ever really happen. What with all the years in the fortress, and then the war, and now…” Her smile disappeared completely as she stopped herself; her mouth became a thin, mortified little line.

“And now…?” Leo pressed.

“Nothing. Not important.” She eased herself back onto her feet, gently scooping up one of the ravens as it fell from her lap. She was smiling again as she looked at Leo, but it was a tight, uneasy smile. “Anyway, we came here on a specific errand, didn’t we?”

Despite his concern, Leo conceded that they had, and set about fetching cases for the letters. These were ingenious little things; they ran on a kind of dark magic that influenced the mind - not powerful enough to have the same effect as possession, but strong enough to sow the idea in the backs of the birds’ minds that there was something shiny or delicious waiting for them at the destination the caster wanted the letter sent to.

“Shall we do yours first?” he offered, when he caught Shigure’s eye. The little boy had been playing on the floor with the ravens, but now he was watching, fascinated, as Leo activated the spell.

“‘Kay.” He thrust the letter at his uncle; it was a bundle of pages, held together with Kamui’s seal and addressed to “火之迦おばさん”. A little shower of chalk dust was coming off the edges of one of the pages; Leo’s fingers were soon covered in blue powder.

While Kamui held the raven steady, and Shigure watched with eyes as round and unblinking as the ravens’ own, Leo strapped the letter to the bird’s leg, and went to hold the window open.

“Safe journey, little one,” Kamui whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of its head before she released it. Leo told himself firmly that it was both immature and irrational to be jealous of a bird.

“Bye, _kotori_.” Shigure gave it a little wave. “How long d’you think it’ll take to get there?”

“Well, back when we lived in Hoshido, your Uncle Leo’s letters usually came to me about a day after they were written,” said Kamui. Leo felt two separate rushes of affection, of two different sorts. The first was a soft ache at the memory of the days when they could only speak through written words; of the longing with which he watched his letters fly away, and the thrill he felt whenever her replies arrived. The second was an amused sort of warmth, as he mused that _Uncle Leo_ had quite a pleasant ring to it. It was true that Shigure was not Father’s grandson in truth, and that he had been brought over chiefly for his own safety, and to a lesser degree for Camilla’s sake; but in all honesty, Leo was starting to feel that he could get used to the idea of having a nephew. Particularly one who liked dragons and art, and didn’t go around whinging and getting sticky like most of the brats Leo had encountered.

“So tomorrow, then.” Both Shigure and Kamui stared after the raven until it was out of sight. Not for the first or last time, Leo felt a surge of guilt at having dragged his nephew into the dark with him. Part of him wanted to assure the boy that this really was just a temporary measure, and that they could make other arrangements for his education once Anankos was defeated. But he couldn’t say that, and they couldn’t do that: whether or not Anankos drew breath, Shigure would hardly be a popular king if he was brought in to rule after a childhood spent in the sun, knowing nothing of his own people’s struggles.

“Now if you give me your letter to the Sage?” he said instead, holding out the second case. Kamui handed it over; a jolt went through Leo as their fingertips brushed.

Apparently, though, it had also gone through Kamui. She jerked her hand back with a quick, sharp gasp.

“S-sorry,” she mumbled. She selected a second bird, and kept her gaze fixed firmly down at it as she held it out to him. Again, her face had taken on a deep flush; Leo began to wonder, again, if she had taken ill, but now that he was near enough to examine her more closely, she was otherwise healthy. But what other cause had Kamui to blush? Embarrassment? No, that made no sense; why would _she_ be embarrassed? She was always touching him - nudging him, and clasping his hands, and kissing his forehead. She’d never thought anything of it before, not until…

Oh. Oh, gods.

Kamui _knew_. She knew that he was in love with her. Leo cursed internally, wondering when she had realised it. Most likely it was yesterday; when she had lifted her head to kiss his brow, there had been a moment - only a moment, and he had hoped he’d caught himself before she could notice - where he had almost tried to kiss her himself, had actually begun to lean towards her, and just barely managed to stop himself in time. And even if, by some miracle, she hadn’t noticed _that_ , she _must_ have noticed how furiously his face and ears had reddened when she kissed him - his skin had felt like it was about to melt off. No, it would explain too much, if she had figured it out then, for her not to have: hadn’t she grown as flustered in that moment as she was now? Hadn't she fled at the first opportunity? Hadn’t she passed the entire journey home in nervous silence?

But, if she did know how he felt, why hadn’t she _said_ anything? Why was she forcing herself to tolerate his presence now, when she so obviously wanted him to leave?

Because she didn’t feel like she could, he realised. While he had, he was now convinced, made it completely transparent that he loved her - had practically declared it to the world - well, that was precisely it. He had only _practically_ declared it. Kamui didn’t reject him openly because, and only because, he had made her no offer yet. From his perspective (as she would imagine it), he hadn’t done anything to deserve to be cut out of her life without an explanation; and so she would have to endure his company, despite how very uncomfortable it made her, until he did.

Which was never going to happen.

What _was_ the best course of action in this situation? Leo couldn’t very well take to avoiding Kamui himself; aside from the fact that he would need to keep her informed on any developments regarding Anankos, Kamui was staying here for the express purpose of representing Shigure’s Hoshidan relatives. It would hardly make Leo look like a reasonable king if he suddenly turned frigid in his interactions with a foreign ambassador - and a princess, to boot - after a year of regular correspondence and two weeks of working closely with her. But seeing Kamui try to grip the bird in her trembling fingers, and knowing that he was the one who was causing her such distress…

“Leo.” Gods, even the way she said his name made it obvious that she knew. Her voice was slightly ragged, but soft with… what was that? Pity? Gods, she probably thought he was sick in the head…

“Leo,” Kamui repeated, more firmly; this time, he was fully startled back to his senses. She still didn’t look him in the eye; instead she stared pointedly at the window-latch. “I can’t hold the bird and open the window at the same time.”

“Ah. Window. Right. Yes.” Leo surged forwards to open it. The raven flew up and over the castle’s roof, leaving the sky bare, but still they stared out in silence, as if that one had flown to Hoshido as well. Gods, no wonder Kamui had watched the other one go so intently: she was probably wishing she was back there now, back with her real brothers who didn't try to kiss her.

The third letter they sent off in complete silence. The grey light, which had made the aviary seem so mystical and ethereal before, now made the place feel cold and oppressive; an empty stone cell in which a dark king kept a silver prince and princess barred from flying home.

“What was yours about?” asked Kamui, finally. Her voice was so quiet that it took Leo a moment to register that she had actually spoken.

“Er. I was just briefing Nyx on… yesterday’s events.” What was he _doing_? Reminding her of the incident that had sparked all of this in the first place?

“Oh, I was meaning to ask you about that.” Kamui swallowed hard; yes, she was definitely remembering it. Leo was just beginning to string together the words to apologise, to concur that there was no excuse for his degeneracy, and to assure her that he would never make her interact with him again, when she asked: “how are you holding up?”

Leo blinked at her. “Pardon?”

“Your knee.” Another raven landed on her shoulder; she scratched the back of its head absently, without looking round. “Is it feeling any better?”

“Oh! Er, yes. I saw a physician about it, as you instructed. He said it was expertly healed, and that it should be fully mended within the month, so long as I exercise it carefully,” he assured her, in his most brisk, businesslike tone. He just barely managed to bite back a sigh of relief as she chuckled.

“Thank the gods. And… your magic?”

Upbeat stoicism seemed to be working, so he held to that tack. “I’ve exhausted my entire repertoire, and it doesn’t seem like I’ve lost the ability to cast any of the spells I use with any particular regularity, at least.”

At last Kamui turned to look at him, but her eyes were wide with concern, and her head was tilted questioningly to the side. “But?”

“But… I don’t know. It still feels like something’s… off.” Leo sighed. “I mentioned it in my letter to Nyx; if she doesn’t hex me into oblivion, I’m hoping she’ll be able to refer me to a book on the subject, at least.”

Kamui considered this for a moment. “Well… how exactly did you do what you did?”

“I told you. I cast the spell, and the energy for it was drawn from the reserves of magic in my soul.”

“Nope, not what I meant. I meant how did you _do_ it? As in, talk me through the process,” Kamui elaborated.

Leo shrugged. “There wasn't much of a process to it, really. It was all sort of instinctive. I felt quite drained afterwards - I suppose the closest comparison would be to say it felt like anaemia. But there wasn’t any element of conscious thought involved in the moment I cast the spell.”

“Rats. I’m afraid I don’t know how to help with that, sorry,” Kamui sighed. “But… if you can still cast, that’s probably a good sign, right? You were always such a brilliant mage… maybe you just had such huge reserves of magic that losing some isn’t going to make any difference?”

“Kamui, if I was _that_ powerful, I’d be a god,” said Leo flatly.

“What, you’re admitting that you’re not? Who are you, and what have you done with Leo?” Kamui grinned.

“Well, technically I am _part_ god,” he admitted, ever the image of humility. “But that doesn’t seem to mean anything. After all, you’ve got about as much dragon blood in you as I do.”

“I don’t have anything like as much pig blood, though,” she riposted, punching his shoulder with a cackle that prompted a wave of squawking from the ravens around them.

For a moment, all was well. For a moment, Leo almost managed to forget that she knew him for a degenerate. For a moment, it almost seemed as if she had forgotten it herself. But then she paused, and her smile faded slightly, and she drew back from him a little.

There really wasn’t any way around it. Leo swallowed hard.

“Actually…” he began. “There was one other thing I needed to discuss.”

Kamui tilted her head to the side again. Leo studied the movement, memorising the way her fringe fell, the way the light caught the twists of crimson and amaranthine in her irises; gods knew he’d never get to see any of it again. “Hm?”

“I, er…” Curiously, he didn’t feel any threat of a blush. Quite the opposite: the blood seemed to be draining from his face, rather than rushing to it. It felt as cold as the reality he was finally being forced to confront. But he steeled himself through it, and made, at last, to speak.

“Kamui, I… wait, why are you laughing?”

Whatever it was, it had her in hysterics.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped; gods, she was almost doubled over. “But… you really need to get into the habit of checking your shoes before you go out…”

Leo looked down. His toe waved at him through the hole in his slipper.

He made a sound that could easily have passed for a cry from one of the ravens, if it had been just a little less loud.

“It’s not funny,” he protested, as Kamui wiped a tear away. “Gods, I must have passed half the court on the way to your room…”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” she nodded, as she tried to force her face straight again. “And you’re right, it’s not even all that funny, I just… I guess I needed this…”

“And what, pray tell, is _that_ supposed to mean?” huffed Leo.

“You,” she said simply; she was still a little breathless, but at the very least she had stopped laughing. “You still make these mistakes. Even after… everything that’s changed… you’re still the same person.” Kamui wiped her eyes on the back of her hand; she was still smiling, but it was a brighter one than he’d seen on her since they set out for Valla. “Anyway, I’m sorry, what was it you’d been going to say?”

“Oh! I, er…I ended up growing a mountain of vegetables while I was testing my magic,” Leo finished lamely. “There’s more of them than I know what to do with. So I figured I’d ask if you wanted them. You know, in case you felt like doing something a bit more short-term for the children in the underground.”

“Oh, Leo…” It shouldn’t have been possible for Kamui’s smile to glow any more radiantly than it was already, but somehow she managed it. “Gods, now I feel _really_ bad for teasing you about your slippers.”

“As well you ought,” he said loftily.

Her words were as heartening as they were heartbreaking: even knowing what he was, Kamui was still willing to overlook that truth, to see him as her brother, if he would do the same. As long as he didn’t say anything on the matter, nothing would have to change between them. They could continue as they had been.

Except they couldn’t, not really. She might still laugh at his gaffes, or smile at his altruism, or worry after his health; but there would always be those moments when she would remember, when it would strike her anew that the love he felt for her was not the same as the love she felt for him (if indeed she did still love him at all; in all honesty, Leo would be genuinely surprised if she did). And then she would grow flustered again, and she would turn her face away, repulsed by him and pitying him in equal measure; unwilling to leave him, but unable to look at him.

No, as much as he desperately wanted to keep her in his life, he had no desire to trap her in it. And so, in that moment, he made a resolution: for the rest of her stay here, he would continue as he always had, as her friend and confidant and brother. But this autumn would be their last one together. When winter came, and her visit neared its end, he would tell her how he felt - _everything_ he felt - and allow her the closure of a definite rejection. And after that, she could leave for Hoshido, secure in the knowledge that she was under no obligation to see him again.

But the end of her visit was not until next month. In the meantime, it was as she said: nothing had changed between them yet, and nothing needed to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're feeling cheated (because I am), let me just tacitly state that, as with any world, this fic runs on multiple timelines. In nine of these timelines, Kamui didn’t notice Leo’s slippers. Of those nine, there are five where Leo went through with his confession, and one where Kamui blurted out her own before he had the chance. Which, if my grasp of arithmetic is what it used to be, means there are six timelines where they fell into each other’s arms, in a shower of feathers and overjoyed laughter, and only broke the kiss when Shigure pronounced them “gross”. Unfortunately, we are not following any of those timelines; and so we take the slower path.
> 
> \- 51 KUDOS?! 8 BOOKMARKS?!?! HOW. HOW IS THIS HAPPENING. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, YOU UNBELIEVABLE SWEETHEARTS; I’LL KEEP DOING MY BEST FOR YOU ;.;
> 
> \- Try asking a kid to make up a song on the spot for you sometime. Their improvised lyrics are invariably funnier than anything an adult could write deliberately.
> 
> \- Handfasting, as practiced in 14th-century Scotland, was an informal variation on the marriage ceremony. Just as Camilla explains it, the couple didn’t need any sort of formal documentation or witnesses to the ceremony. Or a priest. Or their parents’ permission. And the marriage was considered binding even if they didn't ever consummate it. Seriously, all you had to do was exchange the vows (there wasn’t even a specific wording you had to use) and bam, that’s it, you’re married in the eyes of God and the law. Naturally, this was a very popular ceremony with couples facing parental opposition to their marriage.
> 
> \- Rue can be used to induce miscarriages, and was historically used as a contraceptive in various countries. Please don’t try it at home; I don’t know how effective it is, or how dangerous, and I’ll not be held responsible for the results. As to whether Kamui and Leo will ever have any use for it… I’ll tacitly point out that while Camilla is very observant, even she isn’t privy to what goes on behind closed doors. She’d be none the wiser if, to pick an example TOTALLY at random and not at ALL based on my own highly-specific headcanons, they were practically or literally an ace couple, whose sons were either planned or the result of scientific curiosity (or celebrations of special occasions; I’ll also tacitly point out that Foleo’s birthday is almost exactly 36 weeks after Leo’s, heheh). Because it’s such a highly specific headcanon, that aspect of their marriage won’t be discussed in this fic, so please feel free to interpret their orientations however you want.
> 
> \- As Leo mentioned back in chapter 1, he’s known they weren’t related for like ten years now, but of course Camilla didn’t KNOW he knew. Her hypothetical scenario where she tells Kamui the truth before the war is actually an AU I’m pretty fond of and have a lot of headcanons for. It’s something I’ve discussed at some length with two of my friends, and while I’m hesitant to commit to another longfic immediately after this one, I do have an outline for it that I’m very excited to start writing proper. So… yeah, that’ll probably be a thing if I manage to finish Arashi before I die of old age, haha.
> 
> \- Leo was able to repair the window, but sadly, he was unable to catch his bath-things as they continued their trajectory into the lower town. The resulting criminal inquiry, regarding the death of a man brained by a flying bar of tomato-leaf soap, was left abandoned when the city’s knights were forced to turn their attentions to more pressing matters later that winter, and was never revisited. Ironically, Niles found the razor quite clean and untouched in the street on his way back from the pub that night, and was able to return it without incident.
> 
> \- Leo’s hair curls naturally, same as his siblings’; he straightens it partly because keeping it short and straight stops it from getting in his face, but mostly because, at the time he first started wearing it that way, he was actively making a concerted effort to avoid looking like Xander as much as possible so people would be less inclined to compare the two of them. That said, his curls are more like Elise’s light waves than Camilla and Xander’s corkscrew curls, so when it gets wet it’s basically just a looser, fluffier version of how it normally looks (imagine Link at the beginning of Windwaker, or, like, any hobbit ever, basically).
> 
> \- Ravens are a popular choice of messenger-bird in the fantasy genre, usually on the grounds that they’re clever enough that they can be trained to do all kinds of neat things. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t serve that purpose very well in real life, precisely BECAUSE they’re just too damn clever. They aren’t blindly obedient like pigeons, and they’d need an incentive not to just break the case open, eat the paper, and then amuse themselves by playing with the case. So in Nohr, that incentive is the promise of something better if they deliver it nicely.


	13. When the Crane and Turtle Slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hinoka goes spelunking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: violence, gore, graphic descriptions of injuries (actually, if in doubt, just assume every Hinoka POV chapter is going to have those things in it), a few references to drug use in a comedic context.
> 
> Sorry for the lack of leokamu this time around! ^^; Our disaster nerd children will be back on ~~the 30th~~ the 15th*; in the meantime, let’s take a moment to check back in on our disaster jock daughter :)  
>  This chapter is brought to you by every D&D campaign I’ve ever played.
> 
> * EDIT: I AM SO, SO SORRY. The next chapter will be out on the 15th of November; for the full explanation, please refer to the comment I left on this chapter, but the short of it is that I had to take a week off for health reasons and won't manage to get it done in time for the 30th. I really am sorry :(

 

 

 

> _“And the Queen’s daughters followed Her Divine Radiance’s golden footsteps through the forest, and they walked bearing the weapons entrusted to them by the Rainbow Dragon, for in these dark days one could expect to be harried by the Dusk Dragon’s wicked forces at every turn. But their path was untroubled, for this forest was under the protection of Her Divine Radiance Herself, even when She hid Herself from the world beyond its borders._
> 
> _When they came at last to the hill, and stood before the great stone that sealed Her Divine Radiance inside, the younger princess, who bore the bow blessed by the spirits of the wind, called out to Her, and entreated Her to warm and illuminate the world once more with Her incandescent light. But Her Divine Radiance lay deep in Her grief and was not to be moved, and bade them leave Her to Her weeping. Then the elder princess, armed with the sword whose blade was as a bolt of lightning, spoke more sternly, telling of the endless winter their people endured as long as Her Divine Radiance hid Her face from them. But still She held to Her confinement, for so greatly wroth was She by the Dusk Dragon’s devilry, and so great was Her shame that She had failed to check him, that She grew certain that the princesses were liars who had come at his behest, treacherously seeking to lure Her out again into the endless war She had sought to seclude Herself from. Again She commanded them to be quit of the forest, and leave Her to the peace She had sought._
> 
> _But the princesses could not return to face the shame of having failed in the task their mother had entrusted to them, and of having betrayed the faith their people had kept in them. Thus they lay sorrowing in the forest, there to live out the last of their days, and the last days of this world, under the fading trees._
> 
> _When they had wandered there for seven nights, it came to pass that the younger princess plucked a reed, and made a pipe from it, seeking to soothe her sister’s weary spirit with the sound of the cradle-song their mother had sung to them each night. And so sweet was the princess’s piping that the guardian spirits of the forest, the kodama and the ten and the kyubi, were drawn out by the music, and the kawauso came up from the river, and even the kinshi descended to hear her play. Wherever the princesses walked, the spirits followed in a lively procession._
> 
> _And so it was that they all made their way through the forest and up to the roots of the hill. There, the princess played her pipe before the stone that was its door, and all the spirits joined her in her song, whether by lending their voices, or with shamisens strung with rush-grass, or by drumming their tails against the earth. In all the ages that have followed since, no music has been played by mortal hands that could compare to their song._
> 
> _Then, at last, Her Divine Radiance’s curiosity overcame Her ire, and She drew the stone aside, to see what was causing the commotion. And in that moment, She saw for Herself how the world was changed, and how cold and dark it had become in the long years that She had passed in solitude. She was much moved to grief, and made to draw back into Her cavern to weep for the world, but the eldest princess held aloft her mirror, and spake: ‘Surely now it must be known to Thee, that Thine is the light that dispels the dusk and the ice.’_
> 
> _And in the surface of the mirror, Her Divine Radiance at last beheld the brilliance and splendour that mortals had ever seen in Her countenance, and saw that this deep frost was of Her making. The tears She wept were now tears of gentle regret, which fell upon the earth as the warm rains of spring, and thawed away the endless winter Her enemy had wrought. And when the world was green again, She anointed the princesses with Her divine dragon’s blood, and they returned to their people as great heroes, whose descendants would rule the lands of the east in glory forever._
> 
> _Thereafter Her Divine Radiance took Her place again atop the hill, to watch over all Her lands and bathe them in Her light. But the eldest princess returned to the hill, and with the newfound powers Her Divine Radiance had granted her, she laid a seal upon the great stone that blocks the entrance to Her cave, that it might not be moved, and Her Divine Radiance might never again go into hiding. And there the stone stands to this day, for only one of Her Divine Radiance’s chosen and anointed children might see it opened anew._
> 
> _And that is why the line of kings holds the power of the First Dragons, and why we do not defile Her forest with axes or hunting-bows, and why the sun shines not upon the lands to the west.”_
> 
> \- A scripture from _The Book of Dawn_ , detailing the legend of how the princesses credited with founding the kingdom of Hoshido set out to end the Dawn Dragon’s confinement, when She sequestered Herself inside a cave in the Divine Dragon’s Forest in order to avoid getting involved in the First Dragons’ war. The Dawn Dragon seems to have held to Her pacifist beliefs throughout the war: the only evidence that the people who would eventually be Hoshidans fought in it are accounts of sieges and raids launched upon their settlements by the other dragons’ followers, most notably the Dusk, Fire, and Ice Dragons.
> 
> Her temple in the forest is still a major religious site among the Hoshidans. The cave’s entrance is indeed blocked by a vast slab of stone; attempts to move it using mechanical means have been met with vehement protest, and any archaeological forays into the place have had to be led by a member of the royal family. The most generally-cited reason for this is respect for the religious values of the Dawn Dragon's followers; however, there are still some people who believe that disturbing the dragon's cave invites ill fortune upon the intruder.
> 
>  

The stone at the root of the hill was a good ten feet across, and near twice as tall. If one could somehow get behind it, and muster enough force to push it over onto its front, the resulting crash would have shaken the leaves from every tree in the forest. As it was, it certainly would have taken the strength of a dragon to move the thing in any direction.

“Here it is. The Dawn Dragon’s cavern, and the birthplace of Hoshidan civilisation as we know it,” said Azama, around the edges of what might have passed for an awed sigh, if he hadn’t had such an irreverent grin scrawled all over his face. It only widened when he turned to Hinoka. “So how are we going to break in?”

“I think I sensed a Dragon Vein around here. Give me a minute…” Hinoka closed her eyes, and began mentally dowsing for it. The feeling of detecting a Dragon Vein was one she would have had a little difficulty in describing. Sometimes it was like glimpsing a flash of gold out of the corner of her eyes, but only while they were closed; sometimes it was like catching a whiff of fire on the wind, but without the smell of smoke. Tapping into it was a more deliberate action: she would feel the energy crackling beneath the surface of the earth, and gather it up to herself like a ball of warm light. Once the ball was big enough, she would throw it at whatever she wanted to change or move or destroy, all while keeping an image in her head of what she wanted it to do for her.

She released that energy now, hurling the ball at the stone in front of her. With a terrific rumbling and a burst of golden light, it rolled to the side as neatly as a sliding door.

Shura gaped openly, with a disbelieving little half-laugh. “Damn. That’s what being part dragon will do for you, I guess.”

“Had you never seen anyone use a Dragon Vein before?” Hinoka asked over her shoulder, cringing at how loudly the question echoed after her. The stone had opened onto a gaping tunnel, just wide enough for three people to walk abreast.

“Not for anything like this.” Shura, at least, had thought to lower his voice as he followed her inside. “The Nohrian royals just used them to shoot fireballs and such. Didn’t seem much different from regular magic.”

“It’s not, really,” put in Orochi. “They’re both powered by energy drawn from the earth and the caster. The difference is that magic gets half its energy from the caster’s soul, and the power needed to use a Dragon Vein is carried through the caster’s blood.”

Hinoka raised an eyebrow. “Where did you learn all that?”

“Taking samples from your brother while he sleeps,” said Orochi cheerfully. She chuckled at the horrified sound Hinoka made, and shook her head. “Kidding. Nah, it was one of the grand high muckity-mucks at the Mage Academy. She was telling me about their research into spells that don’t draw any energy from the earth.”

“So they’d draw all of it from the caster’s soul? Or their blood?” Hinoka’s frown deepened. “That sounds kind of dangerous.”

“Eh, casting that way doesn’t do any damage to your health. It just weakens your magical abilities afterwards. Anyway, we can chat about it later.” She bustled a little ways ahead of them, rounded a corner, and was promptly swallowed up by the shadows.

“Hey, don’t get too far ahead!” hissed Shura; there was a faint scuffle of feet moving past Hinoka as he quickened his pace. “This hallway isn’t used for much, but you do still get people coming through here sometimes.”

Hinoka nodded grimly to herself, and jerked her naginata upwards, feeling the weight of it shift in her hand as the wooden sheath flipped off. In a few moments, she would be slashing and thrusting again, and each drop of blood she spilled would mark out a trail that led her to the man who had killed her mother.

 

* * *

 

If you are unaccustomed to travelling through the deep places of the world, you often find that before your eyes fully adjust to the shadows clustering around you, the darkness grows so blinding that your other senses soon start to feel as dulled by it as your eyesight. It becomes near enough to impossible to focus on the sounds and smells around you, because your own mind is too busy screaming at you that _you can’t see_. That was how Hinoka felt, as she shuffled further into the Dawn Dragon’s cave. It was easy to lose one’s footing in here: the tunnel went on at a steepish downward slope, and curved around itself in a spiral, following the inside of the hill deeper and deeper into the earth. Hinoka’s naginata quickly fell back to its usual chore of scraping along the path ahead; her free hand trailed the wall at her left, as she forced herself to push past her disorientation and take in the feel of the tight-packed dirt against her fingertips and under her feet, as the only means of navigating in here. It was a little embarrassing, when she really thought about it: for fourteen years, she had devoted her every waking moment to training for the day when she would storm the Nohrian castle; why, in all that time, hadn’t she thought to test her night vision more thoroughly?

Still, feeling the butt of her weapon’s haft stuttering over the ground did strike her with another, more pressing thought.

“Oh, wait. Are there traps in here?” she asked, before swearing under her breath as she strode headlong into what felt like a pyramid of small barrels. By the sound and feel of it, she managed to steady the pile before it toppled, but it was a very near thing.

“I’m keeping an eye out,” said Shura, his gruff voice drumming out from a few feet ahead of her, “but I’d say probably not. Back when I was working for him, we only used this part of the caves as a dumping-ground for when we ran out of space in the storerooms.”

“If it would grant you peace of mind, we could always just tie a rope to Setsuna and make her walk ahead of us,” Azama suggested innocently.

“Walk in front? But I don’t know which way to go…” mumbled Setsuna.

“We’re not using Setsuna as bait,” said Hinoka flatly. “That’s horrible. Besides, she’d just end up falling through the floor onto their heads, or something.”

“Well, that’s what the rope would be for -”

“ _Shh!_ ”

Shura hushed them frantically with a quick shake of his head; Hinoka could see the movement silhouetted against the faint glow of torchlight flickering from around the bend. Another scuttle of footsteps could be heard, drawing nearer. Hinoka shifted her stance, poised again to attack; there was a flutter of paper beside her as Orochi unfurled her scroll.

Two guards, both armed with lanterns and long Nohrian knives, rounded the corner.

“Shinobu, I’m telling you, you’re being paranoid.”

“No, I swear I heard something,” the other insisted.

“Right. Just like you swore it was a kodama who drank those three casks of Nohrian whisky Kazama wanted sold.”

“No, this time I mean - _ha!_ ”

They both started when they found themselves face-to-face with Hinoka’s party.

Everyone stared at each other for a long moment.

The man who had been accused of paranoia - Shinobu - slowly turned to his friend, a smirk spreading over his face.

“Don’t,” groaned the other.

“Well," said Shinobu smugly, "I don't want to say 'I told you so,' but...  _ack_ …” Shinobu’s face crumpled; he made a horribly familiar choking sound. “My last words are ‘I told you so’!” he cried hastily, before he fell forward with a gaping wound carved into his back.

A new light illuminated the cavern now: a wisp of violet flame, floating just above ground-level behind the guards.

The remaining guard gaped at it, then back at the scroll in Orochi’s hand.

“Oh, bugger,” he groaned; then, with a cry of “ _Intruders!_ ”, he raised his knife in a clumsy thrust at Hinoka’s head. She dodged it easily, and with a quick jumping thrust, drove her own blade into the man’s shoulder.

“Intru - _gyargh!_ ” he repeated, but this time he didn’t get to finish before his head was bouncing down the corridor. For just a brief second, Hinoka saw it: the ghostly figure of a swordsman, rising up from the fire.

“Orochi, I think…”

Orochi nodded. “Yeah, it’s like the apparition that appeared in the square. We’re on the right track here.”

Well, they could discuss it later, when they brought Kazama in for interrogation. Right now, Hinoka had to focus on the opponent in front of her. She grit her teeth, and charged forwards.

And kept charging.

She skidded to a halt, when she realised she’d moved past him, and cast about for any sign of the flames. But the enemy had just vanished, as quickly as he had appeared -

“Hinoka, watch yourself!”

Hinoka saw the blade come down half a second before it could cleave her skull. It was just enough time to swerve to the side; the sword's edge nicked her cheek, but dealt her no greater damage than that.

A second, brighter light appeared behind the flame: a blinding red glow, speeding nearer and nearer. It was only when Hinoka had scrambled out of its road that she recognised it as one of Orochi’s summoned spirits: a great ox thundered down the hallway, ploughing straight into the swordsman.

When it reached the end of the corridor it faded, leaving the tunnel completely dark once again.

“Did I get him?” asked Orochi.

“I don’t know,” said Hinoka, as she picked herself up. “He could’ve just disappeared again. Stay on your guard, all of you.”

She led them around the last bend, and into a wider room. Probably it was some sort of storeroom; the floor was divided into a maze of barrels, stacked crates, and sacks leaking some sort of black powder. All of them were labelled _FOR SELLING, HANDS OFF (THAT MEANS YOU, SHINOBU)_.

The floor was also littered with dead bodies, and carpeted by some five or six violet flames.

This time, Hinoka was ready. As the little fires began to drift towards her, she raised her weapon and surged forward.

A black cloud exploded over the room.

“What the hell, Shura?” demanded Hinoka, scarcely managing to get the words out for choking the powder out of her system.

“Sorry, Lady Hinoka!” he hollered, tossing the shredded sack aside. “I figured it’d make them easier to spot. Try not to breathe any of it in, though.”

“Say that sooner,” said Orochi wryly, in a voice rough with repressed coughing.

He wasn’t wrong, though. While the powder hadn’t covered the enemy thickly enough to make them completely visible, it was easier to spot at least parts of all of them now: here a fist, gripping the haft of what the flex of the forearm marked as a naginata; there a pair of feet, spaced apart into the bandy-legged stance of an archer.

The first one, the swordsman who had killed the guards, stood nearest them. Hinoka sped towards him now, in one last charge; when he raised his sword to block her, she went low, smashing her blade through him in an admittedly unsportsmanlike thrust.

The swordsman’s body distorted, and then fell apart, as the flames swept up and swallowed him.

Gathering herself, Hinoka cast about for her next opponent. Four of them remained: an archer, a spear fighter, and two more swordsmen. Shura had climbed onto one of the stacks of crates, and was picking at them with his bow. A few of his arrows hung in midair; it was difficult to say whether the ones that skittered to the floor had missed their marks, or gone straight through them. Orochi’s ox spirit rammed through their ranks; its hooves beat down the swordsmen easily, but the archer flickered away into a wisp as it approached, leaving the ox spirit to keep charging directly into the crates stacked against the far wall and vanish in a puff of smoke and clumsiness.

Hinoka saw the archer’s heels dig into the dirt floor, as he shifted one foot in front of the other, poised to take aim at Orochi in retaliation. She rushed him with a yelp, drawing his focus to her, and made to stab again.

It was only when she saw the arrow staring her straight in the eye, that she realised the flaw in this approach.

She swerved to the side to dodge it, crashing headlong into the spear fighter in the process. The arrow struck one of the barrels with a dull _thunk_. A clear liquid that smelled suspiciously like sake began to leak out of it.

Hinoka stabbed the spear fighter before he had time to react. When she turned her attentions back to the archer, another arrow was already streaking towards her.

There was a terrific explosion of splinters.

As the second arrow shattered through the first and fell to the floor, Hinoka followed its path over her shoulder. Setsuna was already in the process of nocking another one.

“Did you seriously just shoot an arrow down in midair?!” asked Hinoka incredulously. Setsuna responded with an absent chuckle, and opened fire on the archer again. With his attentions trained on the two of them, he didn’t notice that Orochi had cast again; when the ox spirit charged one last time, it barrelled headlong into a burst of flames, knocking the archer's last arrow uselessly to the ground with a disappointed _plink_.

“I think that takes care of that?” Hinoka lifted her naginata to inspect the blade; oddly, there didn’t seem to be any trace of blood there. “Where would Kazama be?”

“Outside that door somewhere, probably,” said Shura, as he jumped back to the floor to retrieve his arrows. He spoke a little absently; there seemed to be even more of a shadow clouding his face than there was normally.

“Makes you wonder, though,” mused Orochi dubiously, wrinkling her nose as she skirted the bodies of Kazama’s men. “If Kazama summoned those guys, why were they attacking his men?”

“Good point,” said Shura gratefully; probably Orochi was deliberately voicing his concern. “He wasn’t above using killing as a punishment for insubordination, but usually he’d make the other men do the deed. Sets more of an example that way,” he added, in a voice dripping with distaste.

“Maybe he saw us coming, and wanted to cover his tracks? - wait, no, he’d have no way of seeing who we were from that far away…” Hinoka frowned. “Yeah, that’s actually really weird.”

“Well, I guess the only way to find out is to keep going,” shrugged Shura, shouldering his newly-restocked quiver.

“Right,” Hinoka nodded. “Come on, you two - wait, Azama, quit scraping that stuff off the floor!”

“Why? The labels only say we’re not to touch anything they’re planning on selling,” he pointed out, with a blithe smile. “If it’s already been on the floor, it’s fair game, right?”

“No, _not_ right! We don’t even know what it is!” Hinoka gesticulated furiously for a moment, as she cast about for some way to talk some common sense into a man who always seemed to pride himself on his having none. “Look, that fight took a good few minutes, right? So it’s been too long now for the five-second rule to apply.”

Azama’s perpetual smile actually did wane slightly at that.

“You’re no fun, Lady Hinoka,” he drawled, as he let his bag of powder drop to the ground again.

 

* * *

 

They encountered so many more of these invisible soldiers, as Hinoka carved out a path through the interlocking hive of storerooms and out into another corridor, that this mission was beginning to seem less like a raid and more like pest control.

More of the demonic fires flared up and floated towards them as they ran down this latest tunnel. Most of them were trampled down by Orochi’s ox spirit, who led the way to serve as both a vanguard and a source of light; the few who managed to avoid it found themselves skewered on Hinoka’s naginata, or Shura and Setsuna’s arrows, as they passed.

The corridor opened onto a junction between another warren of doors and tunnels, and a roughly-built wooden staircase which presumably led up to the surface. A man in mismatched armour lay curled in a foetal position at the foot of the stairs, surrounded by a circle of giddily dancing will-o’-the-wisps. More dead bodies lay scattered (gruesomely enough, in the literal sense) about the floor around him, and halfway up the stairs. He had his hands clamped over his ears, and his shoulders shook violently.

“I’m sorry,” he kept saying, in a fey gibber. “Gods, I’m sorry. I’ll turn honest, I swear, I’ll never come back here again. Just leave me alone, leave me alone, I’m sorry…”

"Oh, great," groaned Shura. "It's Jirokichi."

Hinoka raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"He used to fight me for my cut of the loot after every job when we were kids," he explained wryly. "Always lost, but that never stopped him trying."

“Oh, well. Guess we should put him out of his misery anyway,” Hinoka shrugged. It was a little easier to spot them this time: the light of each warrior’s flaming belt lit his neighbours on either side, casting their heads and shoulders with a faint outline of purple highlights and shadows. It was still a bit of a struggle to pinpoint their weapons, but if they were threatening Jirokichi at that close range, they were probably all melee fighters - if nothing else, the bow lying useless and forgotten at his knees proved as much. “I’ll charge them. You guys cover me.”

“You know, it’s only just struck me that we really should have brought another close-range fighter with us,” said Shura ruefully, as he strafed to the side for a clearer shot.

“Yeah, see, stuff like this is why Takumi’s the strategist in the family,” Hinoka concurred, with a grin that framed the remark as a joke, rather than the genuine admission of her own failings that she had secretly intended it to be.

Still, if she could see roughly where her opponents were, she’d probably manage easily enough. The one nearest her was a brick house of a man, about a head taller than Hinoka; how long had it been since she’d last faced an opponent that much bigger than herself? Guided by a volley of arrows, and flanked by another ox spirit, she trained her blade on the smoky surface of his solar plexus, and made to ram it in.

Her entire right side was struck with a clash that sent stars sparking over her eyes.

Hinoka staggered back, her screaming spear-arm clamped tightly to her ribcage. Her naginata lay strewn across the ground in splintered fragments.

The warrior she had charged raised his club (of bloody _course_ some of them would have clubs, why hadn’t that occurred to her?), and brought it down again. She threw herself to the side; the club struck the ground with a force that left a web of long cracks to mark where she’d been.

Again and again she jumped back from him; with no weapon (and functionally, no arm) there was little else she could do. Luckily, the other ones seemed occupied; her companions had followed close behind her, and were making light work of them. Orochi and Shura had both managed to land a few hits, and Setsuna gave the air a lazy imitation of a punch as one of the flames reared up and flickered out.

That, in particular, caught Hinoka’s eye. As Setsuna’s opponent faded, something clattered to the ground in its wake. It winked at her with a metallic glint; had the fallen enemy dropped their weapon?

Hinoka dived for it, dodging the club and ducking her friends’ arrows. Up close, it proved to be some sort of spear, although it wasn’t like any Hinoka had ever seen. The haft was carved from a strange greyish wood, and the guard was of a white metal, wrought in the shape of a stylised wing and inlaid with glassy blue stones. It was a little showy for Hinoka’s liking, but a fancy weapon was still a weapon. She snatched it up gratefully in her left hand, bracing for the extra effort of using the arm that hadn’t been trained to lift a weapon; to her surprise, though, it was as light as the feathers that adorned it.

The soldier with the club was bearing down on her again; she avoided his swing with a strafe to the side, circling a little behind him, and thrust her new spear into his lower back. It slid, as cleanly and neatly as a hot knife through wax, into one of the slits between the segments of his spine.

He fell away into the flames as she tore the blade out. No sooner had she done so than another opponent charged her. This, at least, would be a simpler victory: Hinoka spotted the sword in his hand even before he drew it back into an offensive stance, and a few arrows floated in midair where his shoulder would be.

Even so, she hadn’t trained to be left-handed. Her swings were clumsier now, the blade’s trajectory harder to control; her focus here would have to be mostly on her footwork. She sprang back as the blade came down, and lunged for his throat while he was recovering from the momentum of his own blow.

There were only two of the invisible soldiers left now, and Orochi was preparing to cast again. As the red bull flew at them, one drew back, but the other slammed into the wall with a sound that, oddly, put Hinoka in mind of a wave crashing against the hull of a ship. Seizing advantage of the survivor’s disorientation, Hinoka propelled herself forth and hurled her spear into his skull with a force that nailed his head shatteringly to the floor.

And with that, it was over.

Hinoka allowed herself, at last, to breathe. Her throat felt dry and ragged; her right arm was still paralysed at her side; her left ached from all the twisting and turning at such different angles to the way she normally held it while fighting.

She felt _fantastic_.

It was all she could do not to laugh out loud. How long had it been since she’d fought in a real battle, against opponents more dangerous, and more unpredictable, than petty criminals? She felt as if her entire body was made of galeforce winds, as if sitting still would take more effort than sprinting around the room. She felt like _herself_.

Orochi seemed less enthused with her, though.

“Hinoka?” she said, in that terrifying sing-song voice that meant _I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed_.

“Yes?” Hinoka forced an inquiring smile, while bracing internally for the impact.

Orochi came closer, dropping to a stomach-churning undertone. Her usual smile persisted, which somehow made her even scarier. “I just wondered if, maybe, you’d care to tell me what you thought you were doing back there?”

Hinoka shrugged. “Uh, fighting?”

“Oh, don’t give me that. I’m asking why you let that guy break your arm, instead of backing off when you saw he had a club.”

“It’s not broken,” Hinoka insisted, holding her right hand up to demonstrate; but then she had to fold it away again very quickly. “Okay, yeah, it may or may not be slightly broken. - but I had to! If I hadn’t, he’d have gone after you guys, and -”

“And then you wouldn’t have gotten the thrill of a challenge,” said Orochi flatly. “I’m not _that_ flaky, Hinoka.”

Hinoka bit her lip.

“I get that you haven’t had a decent fight in a year,” her sister continued. “And I know you're excited to get your mojo back. But I don't want to be the one who has to tell the family that you got yourself clobbered to death in your quest for an adrenaline rush."

“That wouldn’t happen normally,” Hinoka pointed out. “I’m just out of practice -”

Orochi gave her a pointed look.

“But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Hinoka sighed. “Fine, I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” Orochi patted her on the arm. Unfortunately, it was the broken arm; Hinoka grimaced as another ripple of pain ran down it. “Don’t forget, if it wasn’t Kazama who summoned these things, we’ll probably have to fight more of them soon enough.”

 

* * *

 

Once Azama had attended to her arm, Hinoka made her way over to the man their opponents had cornered - Jirokichi, Shura had called him. The poor bugger was still sobbing into his knees, curled in on himself like a pangolin retreating behind its scales. Hinoka kept her spear in hand, trained slightly on him; this man may be a gibbering wreck, but he was still with Kazama, and cutpurses and cut-throats weren’t exactly known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves. It was possible that he was just faking this feebleness, and would stick them the second their backs were turned.

“Ah, gods, forgive me…” he muttered into the folds of his grubby hakama. Hinoka cleared her throat; she’d never actually seen an adult man weep openly before, and it was making her quite uncomfortable.

“Hey, they’re gone now,” she said. Jirokichi raised his head, and looked up at her with hollow eyes that bulged so peculiarly wide in his thin face that Hinoka half expected them to drop out of their sockets. It was difficult to say whether he was Hoshidan or Nohrian; perhaps he was a mix of the two, or a son of one of the various smaller tribes who peopled the south.

“Gone?” His bulbous eyes darted about the room; the flames had all died away now, leaving nothing to say they’d been but the bandit bits littering the floor, and the remains of Hinoka’s naginata. He sprang clumsily to his feet, with a fey laugh. “Ha! Gone! They’re gone!”

“Yeah, we took them out. You’re welcome.” Shura was still darting about the field, picking up arrows again. He seemed to be making a pointed effort to avoid letting this man see his face; Hinoka wondered if they were old friends, so to speak.

“Ha… this is the part where I’d normally have to ask how you got in, and shoot you; and not always in that order. But at this point I’m past caring. Soon as I find a way out, I’m flitting. It’s not natural, none of this…” As Jirokichi’s gaze passed from Hinoka’s face to Shura’s, his eyes narrowed into what would have looked like a normal size on another person, but on this fellow probably passed for his suspicious expression. “Don’t I know you, mister?”

Shura shrugged. “I just have one of those faces.”

“Anyway,” said Hinoka, swerving the conversation to avoid a tangent. “Where did these creatures come from? Are there more of them in here?”

“More?” Jirokichi threw his head back in a horrible wheezing laugh that sounded as if he was choking. “Are there more, she says! - the whole hill’s crawling with them. They come out through the floor, or the walls… it’s the gods, I’m telling you. They’re punishing us for using their forest like this.”

“You always were a superstitious one,” Shura snorted ruefully.

Jirokichi whipped his head around. “You say something?”

“So Kazama didn’t summon them?” he amended quickly.

“Kazama?” Jirokichi’s brow furrowed. “If anyone could’ve summonsed them, it’s him. But no, I don’t think so. He told us to fend them off as soon as he saw them, and when that weird samurai started slicing us up, he -”

“Samurai?” Hinoka’s eyes went almost as wide as the outlaw’s.

He scratched his head. “Well, he fought like one. Hoshidan sword and that. But he had this long robe on, with a hood what covered his face, like a sideshow magician. Maybe _he_ summonsed them. He’s maybe some sort of wossname of the dragon, you know… an acolyte.”

“Where is he now?” demanded Hinoka. Jirokichi pointed shakily to a door opposite the one they’d come through.

“He _was_ in there. Kazama was holding him off since he’s ‘the only semi-competent person in this stronghold’ or somesuch.” Jirokichi mimed quotation marks in the air over this description of his master. “Told us to go clear out the storerooms, but then we thought, sod it, better to just flit now and live to fight another day. You can see how that turned out.” He cast a rueful grimace at the remains of his comrades. “So yeah, that’s where I saw him last. But these things, they can walk through the walls; he could be anywhere now.”

“All I needed to hear. Thanks.” Hinoka turned towards the door. She had expected this trip to yield some leads for the investigation, but the invisible samurai was actually here himself? Gods, and it wasn’t even her birthday.

“I’d keep to your left hand for this battle,” Shura advised, as they turned away from Jirokichi. “I don’t know about this invisible samurai, but if Kazama’s still alive in there, you’ll stand a better chance using an arm with a full range of movement.” 

He wasn’t wrong: Azama’s festal had dealt with the pain, and there was no longer any chance that Hinoka’s arm would have to be amputated when they got home, but it was still quite stiff, and if she put too much strain on it the spell could break, taking the bones with it.

“Noted,” Hinoka nodded.

He turned back to the outlaw. “Let me just tip you off here: technically, we’re only here for Kazama. So we didn’t see you if you didn’t see us.”

Jirokichi punched his palm, eyes alight with recognition. “Wait, it’s Shura, isn’t it?”

Shura cast his eyes wearily at the ceiling, and nodded, hands spread in mock surrender. “You caught me, officer.”

Jirokichi hacked up another laugh. “Damn, man, where’ve you been? You disappeared after the Krakenburg job, I didn't even get to fight you -”

“So I guess we should go find Kazama,” Shura interrupted pointedly. Hinoka was pretty curious as to what the Krakenburg job was, but it didn’t look like she’d get to find out. His friend was not to be deterred, though.

“Wait, what d’you want with him in the first place? He’ll have your head when he sees you’ve come back.”

“More like she’ll have his,” Shura snorted, with a thumb pointed over his shoulder at Hinoka. “We’re here to settle a few scores with him. And if you’re feeling unusually loyal, you can take it up with the lady who took down three of those demon things with a broken spear-arm.”

Jirokichi snickered again at that. “No need. Kazama can take you all piss-easy on his own. Leastways, he will if that thing hasn’t killed him already. Either way, nice knowing you, Shura.”

Shura waved goodbye to him with one finger.

The door opened onto some sort of throne room: the floor was almost an empty space, save for a raised dais built against the far wall, which was partitioned off from the rest of the room by an elaborately-painted screen, and lit by an array of standing stone lanterns encircling its base. It was difficult to say whether Kazama had been egomaniacal enough to have it built, or if the Dawn Dragon had once knelt behind that screen to weep into Her lap.

If there was anything more to the decor in here, Hinoka didn’t notice: her attentions were preoccupied with the battle raging in front of the dais. Sure enough, the invisible swordsman was there, billowing robe and all; he was crossing blades with a man in dark-red kusari, immediately recognisable as Kazama, despite the streaks of grey in his flowing hair. Gods only knew how long they’d been at it: both of them were slightly bowed with fatigue, Kazama was covered in cuts, and the samurai’s robe was torn in several places.

When they filed in, Kazama’s gaze instinctively flicked to the doorway for half a second. Half a second too long, as it turned out; even an opening as brief as that was enough for his opponent to slice his blade deep into his side.

Hinoka cursed as Kazama dropped to the floor.

“Don’t let him strike again!” she barked, as she charged forward herself. Even if he hadn’t summoned the demon samurai, he still had several other unresolved crimes to answer for, and if there was one thing Hinoka was still good for, it was law enforcement. Besides which, Shura was her friend: whatever it was that Kazama had made him do at the end, she wanted to help him get closure for it if she could.

Once again, she ran accompanied by a spirit. Orochi had put her Ox Scroll away, in favour of a heavier hitter: a glowing golden tiger streaked across the room at her side, its flaming fur burning more brightly than the lanterns. It leapt at their opponent’s face and clung to his head, releasing its grip only to claw at him as they grappled. He managed to throw it off just as Hinoka approached and made to strike, but the tiger spirit’s distraction only carried her so far; he was holding his weapon in his right hand where hers was in her left. Even if it had been her dominant hand, the way her stance mirrored his would have made her too easy to block; as it was, her thrusts were still clumsy, and she only managed to catch him in the side of his arm as he threw up his blade to knock hers aside. As they sprang apart, he lifted his sword, angling it forwards with the pommel pressed to his shoulder and the point level with Hinoka’s eye. He charged forwards. She swerved to dodge him.

She needn’t have bothered. He stood frozen, his blade hanging in the air, a few inches away from where her face had been. His sword shook slightly in his hand, as if he was trying to move it, but some invisible force was holding him still.

The archers took full advantage of this pause: he had only just recovered when a volley of arrows tore through the air. Both duelists managed to avoid most of them, but one of them caught the samurai directly in his heart. He yanked it out almost disdainfully, tossing it to the floor with an unimpressed clatter. Again, he lunged for Hinoka. Again, he froze before his blade touched her.

Hinoka wondered at this. Was the Dawn Dragon guarding her? Or did her strange spear hold some sort of protective charm against these creatures?

Well, she could question it later - for now, she was back on the offensive, and very keen to stay that way. She was starting to get used to using her left hand; as she thrust, again and again, each was quicker and lighter, and the samurai’s parries and evasions became more and more desperate as he juggled them with also avoiding Shura’s arrows and Orochi’s summoned spirits. At last Hinoka spied an opening, under his left arm, and rammed him in it with a force that would have sent a normal man stumbling backwards. Whatever this guy was, he wasn’t human: he turned the spearhead aside with a rolling shrug and was soon bearing down on her again. Let him, Hinoka snarled internally. She could cut him again, and again, and again, until that grubby robe of his was charred away in the fires of his own fading body.

She lunged again.

Pain exploded through her thigh.

An arrow was embedded in the muscle. Not very deeply, and only through the fleshiest part. She could probably walk it off, so to speak. Still, it was a nuisance.

“Setsuna!” Hinoka didn’t need to turn around to see what had happened; this was another of her retainer’s more troublesome habits. “What did I say about firing arrows to get my attention?”

“Sorry, Lady Hinoka,” came the faint reply. “The ground down here’s really crumbly…”

“Look, just wait there, we’ll - _stop firing!_ ” Hinoka yelled, as she ducked to dodge another one. Gods, this fight was turning out to be almost funny: the invisible samurai didn't seem able to touch her, but her own retainer might actually get her killed.

Hinoka circled round behind the enemy; from this angle, at least, she could see the arrows coming. She raised her spear again, and inclined her head in a stiff nod to her opponent, just as if she was sparring with Ryouma.

He turned, and charged towards her companions.

Damn it.

Hinoka hared after him, but Orochi seemed to have the matter in hand. She released her spell even as his blade was coming down; as sword and spirit collided, both were thrown back from each other with an explosive force.

The samurai recovered quickly, but the momentary pause had bought Hinoka enough time to get between him and Orochi.

“Are you all right?” she asked, over her shoulder. As expected, the slash he had been readying for Orochi shuddered to an abrupt halt when Hinoka swooped into its path.

“Should be. There was no mention of death on the cards today.” Orochi had begun to ready another spell; the yellow light reflected blindingly onto the samurai’s blade.

“Heal her, Azama,” Hinoka instructed, even as she moved to strike - and miss - again. “You two, try to get some hits in while I’ve got his attention. And someone get Setsuna out of that hole.”

This hole, at least, was one Setsuna had a legitimate excuse for not climbing out of herself: the only part of her that was visible from up here was the white flash of her hairband. Well, that and all the arrows, anyway. Fortunately, she was firing directly upwards now, so most of them struck the ceiling and fell uselessly back into the hole.

Hinoka was still on the defensive here, despite whatever was preventing her opponent from hitting her. His attentions were largely focussed on trying to move past her, to take another swipe at the long-range fighters in her party; and so it fell to Hinoka to block his path, springing from side to side like an angry crab and stabbing where she could. A few of Shura’s arrows still hit their mark, but most of them were sidestepped or deflected.

The samurai’s swings were growing more ferocious, even if they still stopped short of touching Hinoka, and his parries quicker. For Hinoka’s part, her energy was beginning to wane; the pain in her leg was beginning to nag at her, and her left shoulder was starting to ache from the effort of so much relentless stabbing. Her reaction was a little delayed when her opponent readied his next blow.

The point of his sword smashed into her dō with a ringing that echoed throughout the room.

Hinoka didn’t have time to register the fact that he’d hit her before he was moving to do so again. As he brought the blade whistling through the air, he began to mutter to himself; although most of his words were muffled by his hood, and what few Hinoka could catch made little sense.

“No, I didn’t… don’t want to… why are you making me…?”

He swung his sword in a wide arc, which would have taken her head clean off if she hadn’t ducked in time. She seized the opportunity to target his solar plexus while it was in her range. He gathered himself, and brought his blade down to meet her, just as she was lunging forward.

The arrow tore into his hood, and came out through the back of his head.

He dropped shakily to his knees, but did not fall. Behind him, the arrow lay perfectly clean on the floor.

Hinoka turned to Shura; he was gaping at the hole.

“Mind helping me out of here now?” asked Setsuna. “Only that was my last arrow…”

Hinoka made her no answer. She stood tall before the invisible samurai, her spearhead trained on him. He looked blankly back at her through an empty hood.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“ _Shh,_ ” was all he said in reply.

Azama had finished healing Orochi. She came over now, with a different scroll in hand: the binding scrolls she had used during the war, to restrain the prisoners they took.

“Shall I?” she offered, waving it. Hinoka nodded once, briskly.

Orochi readied the spell. A web of thin white lights spiralled around her; once the web was wide enough, she unravelled it, and sent it snaking out to bind the samurai.

Rather, to bind his robe; the rest of him had vanished.

“ _Damn it!_ ”

“I guess we should have seen that one coming,” sighed Orochi. “They can walk through walls, after all.”

Hinoka picked up the robe. It was made of a peculiar fabric; rougher than Hoshidan silks and cottons, but thinner than Nohrian wool or velvet.

“Would Oboro be able to place this fabric, do you reckon?” she asked.

“If anyone can, it’s her.” A grin spread over Orochi’s face as she realised Hinoka’s meaning. “So we did find something for our troubles after all.”

“It’s a starting point, anyway. We should probably bring Kazama back as well, though; he might know something,” Hinoka decided; then added, with a glance at the heap of mail lying crumpled on the floor, “er, if he’s still alive.”

A moment’s inspection confirmed that he was, although he had bled his way to unconsciousness. The years had been kind to him: aside from the grey in his hair and a few faint creases in his brow, he looked no different to how he had in his poster.

Orochi chuckled at that, and fanned herself with a hand. “And Takumi said he’d have a receding hairline! He’s a bit of a silver fox, really.”

“Should I tell Ryouma you think so, dear sister-in-law?” asked Hinoka wryly.

“Hey, I may not be allowed to touch, but can still enjoy looking…”

After his wounds had been healed, and Orochi had bound him, he was roused again by a concoction Azama had produced from his pack. Which is to say that he choked and spluttered himself awake.

“What poison is this?” was the first thing he said.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Hinoka admitted ruefully.

“How did you find this place?” he asked, looking down at his restraints with only mild interest. There was no note of anger or accusation in his tone; his voice was smoothly civilised - one might almost say _lacquered_. It was interesting that he hadn’t bothered to ask who they were first; Hinoka found herself wondering whether it was just that he’d decided the question was redundant under the circumstances, or whether he knew their faces already.

“By looking,” she said flatly; a guy like this probably went in for mind games when his back was against the wall, and she was damned if she was going to play along with any. “Anyway. Lord Kazama, as captain of the royal guard, I’m placing you under arrest for charges of treason, murder, defilement of sacred ground, illegal substance trafficking… what else has he done?”

Kazama’s expression remained carefully neutral, but his eyes narrowed as Shura stepped up.

“Multiple counts of assault,” he began. There was a fury cast over his face, as he looked his old master dead in the eyes; not the brash, loud fury she’d seen on him in battle - this was a quiet, bitter fury, one that had lain festering for twenty years. “Multiple counts of child abuse. Many, many counts of thievery. At least two counts of embezzlement. And…” He paused a moment; when he spoke again, the words came out in a seething snarl. “One count of human trafficking.”

Orochi looked at him oddly for a moment, before falling into a pensive silence. Kazama, meanwhile, cast his eyes witheringly at the ceiling.

“Gods, I know you,” he groaned. “You’re one of the brats who flitted on me after the Krakenburg job.” He indulged himself in a refined, near-humourless laugh. “Ah, well. If nothing else, you’ve my congratulations for living the longest; most of them never reached the borders of this forest.”

The Krakenburg job again? That was the second time today she’d heard it mentioned. And if it involved human trafficking…

A deeply unsettling thought struck Hinoka.

“You have the right to remain silent,” she said flatly, before Shura could say anything that wasn’t suitable for print.

“But we’d prefer it if you didn’t,” put in Azama. “The potion should start to kick in soon. It’ll make the journey home so much more entertaining if you tell us what you’re seeing.”

Kazama’s eyebrows knit into a dangerous scowl. “What have you made me drink?”

Azama chuckled. “Don’t look so suspicious! I’m a holy man. All I gave you was a nice brew of healthy, natural, organically-grown -”

“It’s the laughing caps, isn’t it?” sighed Hinoka.

“A little bit, yeah.”

 

* * *

 

By the time they had led Kazama from the cave, he had already begun talking strangely.

“Every time you sleep, you die, and someone else is born inside your body… I can feel the earth moving…”

Azama and Setsuna walked ahead this time, frogmarching him. Aside from making it easier for Hinoka to keep track of Setsuna’s height off the ground, it also meant that she, Shura and Orochi stood between Kazama and the hill, in case any surviving bandits came after them. It was quite funny, now that she thought on it: the captain of the royal guard had just rescued a gang of organised criminals. Still, Shura had managed to turn over a new leaf; perhaps these people would be scared into doing the same, she told herself.

Oh, wait, Shura.

“So about this ‘Krakenburg job’,” she began, elegantly subtle as always. Shura still hadn't told them what it was, but she’d had a hunch about it ever since Kazama had mentioned it. But if she’d guessed right…

Shura stiffened beside her. “What of it?”

“They both said you'd left after that one. And Kazama brought it up right after you mentioned human trafficking.” Hinoka swallowed. It was difficult to get the words out, especially seeing the panicked set of Shura’s jaw, but she had to know. “So I was wondering…”

“Are the two things connected?” finished Orochi.

Shura was silent for a long moment. 

“Don’t feel like you have to tell us if you'd rather not,” said Hinoka quickly.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was scarcely raised above a whisper.

“You have to understand, it was the one thing I could never atone for. We had stolen, blackmailed, killed… anything to put grog in our cups. And this is the thing I still haven’t forgiven myself for.”

The sky had grown dark overhead; the woods, which had been so silent on the way in, were now alive with the hooting of night birds and the dancing of fireflies. It was a beautiful evening, and it would have been a marvellous walk; but Shura’s eyes were fixed firmly on his feet.

“I never did find out who hired us for the job. He kept his face hidden, and would only speak to Kazama - now that I think on it, he was probably some high-ranking official in one country or another. Our orders were simple enough: break into some rich old Nohrian’s house, steal something, and deliver it in the same condition we'd found it in. We’d done jobs like that a million times before, but never for so much money. And we’d never robbed the royal family. And…” He breathed in heavily, through his nose. “We’d never stolen a child.”

“Azura,” said Orochi quietly. Shura nodded.

“I couldn’t live with myself after that. Even when I met her again, when she came to Windmire with your army… I still had to deal with the fact I hadn’t known what sort of man we were selling her to. Here was this tiny girl - younger than I was when Kouga fell - and I had no idea what he wanted with her. And I let him take her anyway.”

“Shura…” That Azura had been brought to Hoshido by force was a reality Hinoka had never really considered before now. She remembered how she’d felt when Kamui was abducted; all the nightmares she’d had about her little sister, trapped in that tower, screaming for Hinoka as the Nohrians tortured her or cut her down. Vaguely, she found herself wondering if Princess Camilla had ever had similar dreams about Azura.

But their circumstances weren’t remotely alike, she reminded herself. Azura had told her what sort of place the Nohrian court was, and how glad she was to be free of it.

“You were right to have been concerned for her safety,” she assured him. “Any decent person would be. But when Azura came to us, she was covered in scars. I never found out how she got all of them, but most were still there twenty years later. When she finally found the courage to start talking, she told us how King Garon’s other children would beat her. Or worse.” She tried to smile, but remembering the stories she’d heard was making her eyes sting. “Shura, by taking her away from that, you may have saved her life.”

But he shook his head. “Again, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Lady Hinoka. But I can do a lot more by carrying this guilt with me. There are men like Kazama in power everywhere; and as much as it shames me to admit it, that includes Kouga. What happened to Lady Azura opened my eyes to the kinds of things men like that are willing to turn a blind eye to, if they’re greased well enough.”

“Okay.” Hinoka nodded. “But even so… thank you for rescuing my sister. Even if you didn’t know that’s what you were doing.”

He made no reply, but there seemed to be less of a cloud hanging over him now. They marched on in silence, aside from the occasional rambling from Kazama.

“If we dig a hole, the wolves won’t find us…”

Hinoka’s eyes wandered, again, to the strange spear she had picked up. She had to carry it upright, partly to scope the ground ahead for anything she might trip over in the dark, but also because the short, curved blade was the wrong shape for her naginata's sheath. It would belong to whoever had summoned the demons, she supposed; but, like the samurai’s robe, she hadn’t seen its like in any of the countries she’d fought in. Hopefully someone at the castle would be able to identify it for her - Kagerou, perhaps, or Yukimura.

But as she traced the edge of the blue stone set into its guard, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that, at the very least, she had seen _that_ somewherebefore. Gods, where _had_ she seen it?

She turned her gaze back to the hill - up to the shrine that stood at its summit, supposedly as a house for the Dawn Dragon - and wondered, vaguely, if the Dawn Dragon was happy that they had come along to clean house for Her. Gods knew nobody wanted Her to cry again; especially not when Orochi still couldn’t see any future beyond the end of this winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the lack of leokamu! I usually try to put the scenes together in chronological order; Hinoka arrested Kazama on December 5th, and after Kamui and Leo left the aviary, they didn’t really do anything interesting until the 6th, so it might have thrown things off a bit if I had tried to work them in, haha. As I say, they’ll be back in the next chapter!
> 
> \- I WOULD apologise also for the length of the epigraph, but a) it’s the most fun I’ve ever had writing anything, and b) while my Nohrian mythological headcanons mostly just build on details from the game itself (read: the original wielders of the Nohrian divine weapons actually have names, which derive from real-world mythologies and allow us to make a few guesses about their stories based on that), neither the game nor any spinoff materials since have given us ANYTHING on Hoshido, besides very minor details that are just directly lifted from real-life Heian, Kamakura and Muromachi-era Japan. So yeah, I’m afraid there is a lot more groundwork I have to lay in order to really delve into all my worldbuilding headcanons there, haha.
> 
> \- The myth in the epigraph is very loosely based on the story of Amaterasu’s similar reclusive phase; my image of the Dawn Dragon is pretty heavily inspired by Amaterasu in general. Definitely give the original a read sometime, Shinto mythology is just fascinating… but be aware that my “Hoshidan version” is very Disnified - more cute fairytale imagery, and fewer naked ladies!
> 
> \- I hope I'm not making Hinoka come off like some kind of blood knight in this fic. She definitely doesn't enjoy killing; it’s just that she’s overspecialised in it to such a degree that now it’s the only thing she feels completely confident doing. Eventually she will learn some other skills, but in the meantime, yeah, the only thing she has in common with Pieri is her voice actress, haha.
> 
> \- “But Majou,” I hear you say, “wouldn’t groin attacks be considered fighting dirty?” Well, surprisingly enough, aiming for the groin was actually encouraged! See, almost all suits of armour have the same three weak points: the gap at the neck, between the hauberk and the helmet (hence the invention of the gorget); under the arm, below the pauldron; and, of course, the slit that was always cut into the groin so the wearer could pee without taking their armour off. When facing a heavily armoured opponent, these were pretty much the only places you could do any serious damage, so a shrewd warrior would make it a habit to target these spots first.
> 
> \- As Kaze mentioned back in chapter 8, left-handedness was discouraged in feudal Japanese society, for a variety of mostly etiquette-based reasons. Hinoka’s at an advantage in that her left arm is slightly accustomed to the weight of a naginata, since she occasionally performs two-handed manoeuvres with it, but it’s never had to support the full weight of the weapon like her right arm did.
> 
> \- Quick run-down of Japanese armour terminology: a kusari is a mail shirt; they look a little different to western ones - sort of like jumpers with mail sewn into them. A dō is a cuirass; I was imagining Hinoka in her Falcon Knight getup when I wrote this, haha.
> 
> \- If you can believe it, Setsuna of all people rolled THREE natural 20s this chapter. Yeah, I was surprised by that as well, haha. Shura, meanwhile, got consistently worse rolls than Leo usually does - which, let me tell you, is saying something.
> 
> \- In-game, Vallite soldiers can’t be captured. Presumably, Anankos’s sway over them is stronger than the magic used to capture units.
> 
> \- Laughing caps are a real mushroom, but they are most definitely NOT FOR EATING.
> 
> \- It’s always bugged me that Shura being responsible for Azura’s kidnapping was only touched on briefly in-game, especially since he goes on at length about the shame he feels for having stolen to eat, and I’m pretty sure child abduction is a worse crime than that. Then again, there’s a lot about Shura that really ought to have been expanded on; he has to be the biggest waste of a potentially awesome character I’ve seen since Tauriel was added to the Hobbit films just for the purpose of being a love interest for Poldark Dwarf, haha.


	14. Errands and Errancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Niles attempts to win a card game in a novel fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK WHO'S BACK  
> BACK AGAIN  
> LEO'S BACK  
> TELL A FRIEND
> 
> No trigger warnings this go-around, but this chapter is informally rated 15 for Niles being Niles, and for extremely dry political talk that won’t be plot-important until the next story arc. I’m sorry, this is the problem with having a king for a protagonist, haha.

 

 

 

> _“The monthly supply of food and other resources was the seed of some controversy on both sides of the border. Every person in Hoshido had lost at least one relative to the war, and many farmers and fishers resented the thought that the produce they spent their days toiling over should be given over to their sons’ killers. The rations were packed and transported over the border without incident, but primary sources from the time make it apparent that, for at least some of them, this was done out of a sense of obligation to the crown, instilled by Hoshido’s more rigid adherence to the feudal system, rather than any genuine goodwill toward her newest allies._
> 
> _The Nohrians, for their part, were similarly divided in their reception of this new policy. While those at the bottom of society had learned long ago that pride was not to be an object where keeping oneself fed was concerned, many of those who were less desperate found the prospect of being considered a charity case by the rest of the world degrading. When this viewpoint was put to King Leo in parliament, he was quick to point out that ‘the rations are distributed as part of a permissive scheme intended as a temporary means of keeping the workers fed, until such a time as we are able to clear the national debt through the efforts of our own industries; anyone who finds the prospect of living off these supplies distasteful is quite welcome to opt out.’_
> 
> _A less civil variant on this response can be found in his personal writings, wherein he notes that ‘it is a curious pattern… that those lords who object the most vocally should also, by what I’m sure is a very amusing coincidence, happen to be the same fellows who seem to have the keenest eyes for loopholes when the tax-collector comes to call. One wonders whether relying on the charity of other nations would still be necessary, if these gentlemen paid as much of their income into the treasury as they do to the gambling-tables.’ Eventually, this issue would be rectified (making the king and queen unpopular with the gentry, and popular with everyone else), but owing to the more immediate threats facing his people, Leo was unable to implement his plans to crack down on tax evasion until the summer of 1321.”_
> 
> \- From _An Onerously Protracted History of Nohr_ , volume 37, chapter 17 ( _“Of the Ascension of Leo II”_ ). The “personal writings” it refers to are, of course, King Leo’s diaries; which, in addition to his accounts of each day’s events, also contain a variety of other musings, including sketches, verse, and, most infamously, first drafts of letters and speeches, which seem to be highly acerbic variants of the politer versions he would end up using later. Most of these are addressed to his political opponents, usually in defence of his policies, his choice of wife, and in later volumes, his son’s sartorial preferences.

 

“You told them _what?_ ”

Selena was dabbing at her face with her handkerchief as she asked this; she’d choked so hard that a little bit of milk had gone up her nose. Which would have been gross and painful enough on its own - it had been boiled for far too long, and had to have burnt the skin off her tongue already - but Laslow always made it with honey and cinnamon stirred into it, and the latter wasn’t something anyone wanted in their nostrils. Gods, it was almost enough to put her off the stuff for life.

Almost, she mentally stressed, as she took another sip regardless.

Opposite her, Odin fidgeted, swilling his own untouched milk around and studying the way the cinnamon rose to the surface and painted little lines around the inside of the cup.

“Forgive me, Selena the Mor… Selena the Moralistic,” he mumbled, pausing over a flimsy attempt to cover for himself mid-sentence. “Even such a mind as mine could conceive of no other way to evade his armour-piercing questions.”

“It isn’t the worst idea,” Laslow added. “At least this way we can talk openly about our mission, without having to worry about His Grace asking how we know what we know. It should be easier to get things done now.”

“Yeah, unless he starts to think we’re working for… _that_ guy,” Selena pointed out. “You know, considering we technically _are_.”

“Working for him because he hired us to help him die, yes.” Laslow paused to take another sip of milk; it left a white moustache on his upper lip. Vaguely, Selena found herself wondering if his beard actually would still be that colour, if he were to grow one. With a twist of regret, she supposed not. “I think His Grace might make some allowances for that.”

“There you go with ‘His Grace’ again,” mused Selena. “I don’t get why you keep calling him that.”

Laslow shrugged. “That’s what you call kings, isn’t it? - anyone else want the last biscuit?”

“So not what I meant. Odin doesn’t call him that; _do_ you?”

Odin nearly knocked his cup off the table as he swept his hand up into one of his strange poses. “Indeed not! I address my liege as My Lord Leo, Wise King of the Shadowlands, Ordained Son of the Dark Dragon, Reviver of the Barren Soil -”

“Okay, yeah, we’ve made our point,” said Selena quickly. “Just… I don’t know. ‘Your Grace’ sounds kind of stuffy, especially for you. So… yeah, what gives?”

“Well, Lord Xander did always say I should mind my manners more,” Laslow grinned, taking the last biscuit himself. Normally he’d polish it off in small, light bites, probably so he could swallow them down quickly if the opportunity for an asinine comment presented itself while his mouth was full; but this time he shoved the whole thing in his mouth at once.

Selena felt a twinge of guilt as she realised what was probably going on in his head: if he didn’t address Lord Leo by name, it would be easier to avoid thinking about the fact that he was taking orders from Lord Leo in the first place; and he couldn't refer to the guy as “milord” because from his perspective, Lord Leo _wasn’t_ his lord. No sooner had the guilt flared up than she stamped it out again: how was _she_ to know that Laslow had been that close to Lord Xander? Back when he was alive, the prince had been running Laslow ragged; for their first six years in this world, Selena and Odin had hardly been able to talk about Lady Camilla or Lord Leo, without Laslow joking about how much happier he’d have been working for them. And it wasn’t like Lord Xander had been the friendliest guy around, either. From what Selena could tell (and she always had been a frankly amazing judge of character), he was a harsh taskmaster with no sense of humour, who excelled irritatingly at… well, everything he did, because - and _only_ because - he had some kind of weird insecurity that gave him a perfectionistic streak the length of a continent. If she’d had to spend years training under someone like that, and then, one day, watch them ride off into battle and never come back, she’d have…

Well, maybe she wasn’t in a position to judge Laslow there, come to think of it.

“He had a point, I guess,” she mused, instead of pressing the issue any farther. “Now if you could just start showing girls that kind of respect, maybe you wouldn’t end up getting a fat lip every time you talk to us.”

“But dearest, the acquisition of fat lips is the whole point of the exercise!” Laslow spread his hands in an easy shrug. “And thin lips, and regular-sized ones. They’re all lovely, in their own way.” Here he paused to eye hers, with a waggle of his eyebrows that was obviously trying to be roguish, but actually just made him look like the villain in a low-budget morality play.

“Ugh. In my experience, the best lips are _sealed_ ones,” said Selena flatly. Laslow gave a compliant nod, and pinched his between his thumb and forefinger, pressing them together like a duck’s beak and humming cheerily at his friends in lieu of words. Selena groaned, and buried her face in her hands - out of secondhand embarrassment, you understand; _definitely_ not so that he wouldn't see her snickering.

“Anyway, we’ve gone way off track,” she sighed, lifting her head and turning back to Odin. “So what happened _after_ that? I’m guessing you didn’t succeed, or you’d be more… you know, ‘Huzzah! I hast vanquished the dragon!’” She mimed brandishing an imaginary sword; if anyone else had been doing it, it would have looked ridiculous, but Selena was a good enough actress to pull it off. “That type of thing.”

“Actually, ‘hast’ is only used in the second person,” Odin pointed out; before wilting under her glare. “B-but that’s beside the point! Alas, it was as you say. When we stormed the castle, we found the fell beast laid low, and nearer to death than a banshee. And so Lady Kamui raised her sword aloft, to put the unfortunate wyrm out of his misery, when…”

Here he paused for dramatic effect, wiggling his fingers like a sideshow conjurer. Selena wasn’t entertained.

“When what?” she pressed.

“The sword shattered against his hide.”

“It _broke_?!” Laslow had released his mouth, and now it was hanging slack-jawed. “But why?”

“Alas, that is beyond even the All-Seeing Eye of Odin to tell,” said Odin forlornly. “Lord Leo means to consult with the ancient texts again, and with the esteemed head of our wizarding order.”

Laslow frowned. “But if the Fire Emblem and the Falchion are the same thing in this world, Lady Kamui had everything she needed to defeat him right there. Assuming all dragon gods can be brought down by the same methods, anyway. Maybe the dragons here are different? I don’t know.”

Selena’s mind wandered to another battle, waged on the back of another dragon. She shuddered at the memory - at the smell of decay in the air; at the rush of wind threatening to yank them away as he flew halfway over the continent with their army still clinging to him; at her other memories, warning of what the world would become if they had failed to cut him down in that hour. Admittedly, her own role in that battle had been limited to covering for the people with the fancy swords while they and their tactician hogged all the glory, but the image of the three of them - of the Falchion with the golden blade, and its offspring whose glow cut through the black clouds shrouding the dragon’s shoulders, and the Fire Emblem with its five gleaming stones, was etched into her mind as vividly as the plates of the Hero-King in the books she’d learned to read from.

Wait… it _had_ been five stones, hadn’t it?

“Unless…” Selena raised a finger, about to raise this point with the boys; but then something else caught her eye. “Wait, why is there a _skull_ on the table?”

Odin grinned at that. “I’m very glad you asked! Before you sits the bonded familiar of Odin Dark, Arthentine of the Gloaming Forest, who was entrusted to me by the Dark Lord and granted his name by the Grey Lady -”

“Is that a saucer of milk?” Laslow snorted, pointing out the plate in front of the skull.

“Magical undead dragons get hungry too,” Odin shrugged, giving the skull an affectionate pat.

“You’re an embarrassment,” said Selena flatly. “Anyway, as I was saying, before I got distracted by the piece of a dead animal you’ve left on the surface we eat off of: do we know for sure that the Fire Emblem was complete? Like, did it have all five stones in it?”

Odin stroked his chin, face screwed up in a pantomime of pensiveness. “The sword did glow with a constellation of crimson lights, akin to the aura surrounding Gules. But I cannot recall how many.”

“Right. Only he did tell us to look for the five Divine Weapons, so… maybe it’s like when we had to gather the gemstones for Lucy’s Fire Emblem? Like, you have to get them all together and do some sort of ritual for it to work? I don’t know.”

The two boys goggled at her in silence for a moment.

“Selena,” Laslow began slowly. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a genius?”

“I am, but this hardly showcases it,” she replied modestly. “It’s pretty obvious when you think about it. He wouldn’t have asked us to find all the weapons if we weren’t going to need them.”

“So I suppose one of us should bring this to Lady Kamui’s attention -”

“ _I’ll_ talk to her in the morning,” said Selena pointedly, not liking the smarmy grin that was spreading over Laslow’s face. His skirt-chasing was obnoxious enough normally, but their business with Lady Kamui was actually important.

“I was just about to suggest that,” he agreed (although Selena was pretty sure he was only saying that to avoid another telling-off). “Not to worry, dearest, you’ve no competition for me there. After how good Lord Leo’s been to me, I’m not about to steal his girl.”

“That wasn’t my concern, and she’s not his girl,” Selena countered. “Gods, even if they _were_ together, saying it like that makes it sound like she’s his property or something, it’s gross. No, I was going to see her anyway; she’s got this thing on with Lady Camilla in the morning. And on that note…” She rose from the table and gave her shoulders a good stretch. “I’m off to bed. Don’t you two be staying up too late, after the day Odin’s had.”

“Goodnight, Selena,” said Laslow warmly.

“May your dreams be sufficiently epic, fit to inspire you to ever greater heights when you wake!” Odin chimed in.

Selena snorted, and made for the door.

“Likewise, dummies.”

 

* * *

 

“Did you not sleep well, darling?”

Kamui had to suppress a yawn even as she shook her head. Across the table, Camilla and Mozu both regarded her in silence, with identical frowns of concern, for a long moment. When they spoke again, it was in unison.

“Oh, milady, if something was wrong you should’ve called me -”

“You know I’m here for you at any hour of the day or night, darling -”

“Did you get hurt when you were out with Lord Leo the past couple days? -”

“Are you not comfortable in these rooms? I can have you moved to the royal quarters if you’d like -”

“I knew it, you went to another dangerous place without us, didn’t you? -”

“Oh gods, _are_ you hurt? Let me see -”

Mozu abandoned the teapot, Camilla sprang from her chair, and soon both of them were frantically checking Kamui for bruises.

“Uh, Lady Camilla? She’s looking kind of freaked out.”

Kamui was rescued by Camilla’s retainer - Selena, her name was. All three of them started at the sudden sound; the girl had been rather distant this morning (more so than usual, according to Camilla), and this had been the first full sentence she’d spoken.

“Ah - right you are. Sorry, darling.” They both backed away from Kamui a bit; Camilla gave her an awkward little pat on the arm.

Kamui brushed it off with an apologetic cringe. “No, I’m sorry for worrying you. But it wasn’t anything serious. I was just up all night thinking about… things.”

“Oho!” Camilla laughed quietly into the back of her lace-gloved hand, her crocheted cuff trailing dangerously close to the toast and jam on her plate. Those whiteworked dresses she always wore these days were lovely (even if her reason for wearing them wasn’t), but Kamui wondered vaguely how she managed to avoid staining them. “Well, Selena, aren’t you just as curious as I am about what ‘things’ might mean in this context?”

Her retainer shrugged wordlessly, but there was a slight narrowing to her eyes, the very subtlest flicker of suspicion. As it happened, “things” was a word which here meant “the horrifying eldritch dragon god lying under the earth, who’s spent gods know how many years conspiring to rise up and wipe out the human race, and whom we still haven’t figured out a way to defeat before that happens; the fact that my own mind is gradually deteriorating in the same way his did, and a day may come when I become as twisted and murderous as he is; and let’s not forget the only person I can talk to about any of this, my adoptive brother, and the fact that I won’t even have him for a confidant anymore when he inevitably figures out that I’m hopelessly in love with him, because there’s just no way he won’t think I’m disgusting and never speak to me again, and he’ll be quite right to do so.” But they didn’t need to know any of that.

“Today’s errand, mostly,” Kamui mumbled, instead, nodding at the sacks of tomatoes and onions waiting by the door. Leo had sent one of his retainers round with them last night, the fellow with the eyepatch who rubbed Jakob the wrong way; Kamui had been at once relieved and disappointed that he hadn’t come himself, but she supposed she’d dragged him away from his real job far too many times already. “Thanks for agreeing to help me with that, by the way. The whole thing’s probably going to go more smoothly if you’re there.”

“Oh, think nothing of it!” Camilla chimed. “I’ve dreamed of taking you to the underground market all our lives. Besides, Selena was just dying to come along, weren’t you, dear?”

“Well, if Lady Camilla orders me to go shopping, who am I to refuse her?” Selena actually smiled; a wicked grin that put Kamui painfully in mind of Leo’s smirk.

“Isn’t she an absolute joy?” laughed Camilla. Kamui nodded, as much to shake her head clear as out of politeness. She was being ridiculous, she told herself, as she prodded her attention back to the woman in front of her, and away from the man in her head. Happily, this proved easy enough: Kamui hadn’t had the chance to meet either of Camilla’s retainers before now - not in a setting other than the battlefield, anyway - but Camilla had spoken of them so often, and so fondly, that meeting Selena now almost felt more like being reunited with an old friend. It was nice to finally put a face to the name, even if the prolonged glares that face kept shooting Kamui were a little unnerving.

“Why don’t you both sit down?” she said, gesturing to the empty chairs. “I feel mean eating in front of you.”

“Aw, don’t worry about that, Lady Kamui!” chirped Mozu. “We had breakfast already.”

“You’ve had one, yes,” Kamui countered, grasping at the first joke that sprang to mind. “What about second breakfast?”

Mozu allowed herself a short, nervous giggle at that. “Well, if you’re sure it’s okay…”

“The more, the merrier,” Camilla agreed; then added, with a sweetly diabolical grin, “especially in cases where ‘more’ is in reference to the number of charming ladies at table.”

Mozu jerked her head forward in a bow, squeaked something indistinct in keigo, and plopped down in the seat next to Kamui, her cheeks steadily reddening to about the same shade as the jam. Gods, Camilla’s compliments were downright _lethal_ if you weren’t used to them. Selena took her seat without comment, but there was a hilariously unsubtle slump to her shoulders that seemed to say “thank gods, _finally_.”

“I was surprised not to see Shigure this morning,” Kamui ventured, as she gently pried the teapot from Mozu’s hand and set about pouring out a cup for her.

“Oh, he was already up and breakfasted by the time I’d woken,” said Camilla airily. “He was making noises about going out to play in the snow. Kaze’s usually watching him from somewhere in the shadows, so he should be safe enough, but…” A shadow passed over her features, standing out starkly against the composure of her expression. “Well. He should be safe enough.”

Kamui felt her dragonstone thrum under her sweater, as she joined Camilla in the memory of the last child they had left unattended in this castle. She floundered for a moment, trying to think of a tactful way to point out that Shigure wasn’t Elise, and that she would never let their nephew fall to the same fate their sister had, when Camilla spoke again.

“So whatever became of Felicia? Speaking of people we were surprised not to see here.” Her tone was light, and bright; obviously she was trying to change the subject to something more upbeat. Kamui swallowed, as she racked her brains for the best wording with which to deliver yet more bad news to Camilla.

“Ah - she had to go back to her tribe, milady. Being the chieftain’s daughter and all,” said Mozu, without missing a beat. Gods, Kamui could have sprung from the table and bear-hugged her in that moment.

Camilla closed her eye with a disappointed sigh, and nodded. “I suppose she would, at that. Still, what a shame. Do you hear from her much?”

“Oh yes!” Kamui burst, grateful to have seized upon a more positive topic. “Yes. She writes to both me and Mozu.”

“Hey, speak of the devil.” Mozu fished around in her pockets, and produced a very crumpled piece of paper. “This arrived this morning.”

Kamui regarded it with some bemusement. “This morning? It looks about a hundred years old.”

“Well, that’s the funny thing.” Mozu grimaced, and passed Kamui the letter.

_1/11/1319_

_Dear Mozu,_

_Thank you so much for your letter! Reading it made me smile very big, like this_ (here she had drawn a smiley face, with a grin so wide that it looked like a letter D on its side). _I’d love to be pen-pals, although I’m afraid I don’t have anything very interesting to put in my letters. My father’s still not feeling like himself, so I’ve had to take over a lot of the day-to-day running of the tribe. It’s a big change, but I’m managing - when it gets right down to it, it’s basically just maid work on a larger scale: both jobs are all about fixing problems and looking after people. So I guess I do have a bit of work experience after all!_

_But enough about me; how are you all doing back in Hoshido? I hope you’re well, and that Jakob’s not working you too hard! I miss you all so much - I’d invite you to come stay with us, but Father doesn’t let people from outside into our village anymore. We’re working on talking him round, but it’s slow going. I’ll try to sweet-talk him into letting me go to Lord Leo’s coronation, though, so hopefully we’ll get to catch up properly then. In the meantime, you and Lady Kamui will have to keep me posted (no pun intended!) on what everyone’s up to._

_Anyway, I’m really looking forward to hearing from you again, so write back soon (no pressure though)!_

_Love, Felicia_

_P.S. I’m writing in Nohrian because you did, but let me know if you’d rather I use Hoshidan next time._

Kamui chuckled as she read it. “November the first?”

“You did say her owl usually gets lost on the way over,” said Mozu ruefully. “And I guess it would’ve gone to Shirasagi first, so they’d’ve had to send it on to us from there.”

“It’s a pity she wasn’t at the coronation,” Camilla mused, her eye alight with a wicked twinkle. “Think how funny it would have been, if she had made it here before her letter did!”

“She did say here that she was planning on going,” Kamui frowned, and passed the letter back to Mozu. “I guess Kilma was completely immovable.”

“What’s this?” Camilla’s eyebrow was raised in an expression of curiosity that might have looked very regal and imperious, if she hadn’t been smiling quite so brightly. Gods, Kamui almost wanted to cry at the sight of it: after seeing that Camilla still wore full mourning, she had been so afraid that she would never see that smile again.

Still, her worries were brought back in full force by the blank expression she was met with when she elaborated. “Chief Kilma of the Ice Tribe? He hasn’t been letting anyone enter or leave their village.”

“Oh.” Camilla blinked at her for a moment, then turned her attentions back to her toast with a wry laugh. “Goodness me. I _have_ missed a lot, haven’t I?”

“Er, don’t worry about it, Lady Camilla,” Selena put in encouragingly (if a little dubiously). “Hearing bad news every day was just making you feel worse, right? And… and you’d already been through so much already. You shouldn’t have to do things that’ll undo all the progress you’ve made.” This last part she said with a rather pointed glare at Kamui.

“Y-yes, exactly!” Kamui concurred quickly; Camilla had always referred to Selena’s temper as one of her many endearing qualities, but Kamui had still been left with the impression that she wouldn’t want to be the one to ignite it. “I mean - if you were queen, you’d need to keep track of this stuff. But you’re not. So… no harm done, right?”

It went against everything she stood for to say this. Aside from the importance of knowing when people were suffering and what she might do to help them, the idea of willingly closing oneself off from the outside world, when one had a choice in the matter, was so foreign to Kamui as to be almost repellent. But equally, she remembered the morning when she and Leo had gone to the infirmary, to break the news to Camilla gently before she could infer it from the cries of “The king is dead; long live the queen!” that were already echoing about the halls. Of all the images burnt onto Kamui’s brain from that day, Camilla’s face in that moment had been one of the most terrible. No, after a moment like that, Kamui could definitely understand the urge to stopper one’s ears to the darkness in the world, even if she couldn’t particularly relate to it.

But Camilla shook her head. “No, I’ve kept to myself long enough now, I think. I daresay I should try to catch up on what’s been going on during my… sabbatical, as it were.” She rose from the table, lifting her pelisse from the back of her chair and onto her shoulders in one smooth motion. “Mind getting me up to speed as we’re walking?”

Kamui hoped her grin didn’t look as relieved as it felt. “Gladly.”

 

* * *

 

“‘Fine, twist my arm.’”

Niles tapped one of the cards laid out on the hearthrug in front of him with a finger. “So my Python grows by ten attack points until the end of this turn.”

Leo grinned to himself, as he turned one ear to the conversation while keeping the rest of his attentions fixed on the botanical samples on his desk. He wasn’t an avid Cipher player himself - even before the war, the game simply didn’t have enough of a practical purpose to justify the amount of time he’d be wasting on learning all the intricacies of the rules; not when that time could have been better spent in the Northern Fortress, or the library, or the training-grounds. Either way, he rather doubted the game itself could be as entertaining as listening to his retainers play.

“Oho, very good!” cackled Odin. “But alas, a mere fifty damage cannot so much as dent my chosen hero! I summon thee, Odin Dark!”

Leo winced, spilling the contents of his watering-can all over his desk, as Odin slammed the card down with a force that made the floor shake slightly.

“Guys, inside voices, please,” said Leo sharply, as he frantically dabbed at the desktop with the first piece of cloth he could find; it was only after thoroughly drenching it that he realised it was his collar. Fortunately, the samples he’d been watering were mostly _Oryza Umbra_ seedlings, so at least there was little risk of them drowning.

“Ah! Of course!” Odin agreed, in what was decidedly not an inside voice. “Forgive us, milord; when the pulse-pounding anticipation of this battle of wits takes hold, it is easy indeed to become overwrought! Now, as I say: Odin Dark! With an attack power of 999 and the skills -”

“I’m gonna stop you there,” interrupted Niles, one hand held out flat between them. “We’ve been over this already. I’m not playing with you if you’re going to keep making up overpowered fake cards.”

“B-but this card is no mere forgery!” Odin protested, his voice breaking as momentarily as his performance. “It is a genuine spell-card, etched with its arcane runes by the legendary sage Jyushii Furanigan in the time of the dragons -”

“I didn’t know they had crayons back then.” Laslow eyed the card critically from his vantage point in the armchair behind Odin. In theory, he was brushing a purring Siegkat (being the only person in the castle, besides Leo and Camilla, who could touch her without fear of laceration); in practice, he had been frogmarched into serving as Niles and Odin’s long-suffering referee. “Or glitter.”

Niles snickered; Odin shot Laslow a betrayed look over his shoulder.

“Well, it’s not overpowered, either,” he insisted. “Look at his secondary skill. ‘Bravest, Strongest, Wisest, Wittiest, Humblest Vassal: Odin answers only to the dark bidding of King Leo; when this unit is deployed, loyal Odin is bound by this selfsame geas not to harm him. None of his attacks shall have any effect.’”

“Yes, but the King Leo card is in _your_ deck, Odin. You deployed him last turn,” Laslow pointed out patiently. “There you go, Siegkat, you’re such a pretty kitty…”

Leo grimaced into his seed-tray at that. The King Leo card had been printed as a piece of commemorative merchandise in the weeks leading up to his coronation. It was always a little embarrassing seeing his own face grinning up at him from this children’s trading card, but nowhere near as embarrassing as queueing with Odin outside the shop on the day of its release had been.

“Anyway,” Laslow continued brightly, “I think we can let Odin get away with deploying his special card just this once. Considering that’s the third time you’ve brought out the Python card, and I know for a fact there’s only two in the deck.”

Niles snorted. “That’s different. Sleight of hand is an art form.”

“So is collage,” Odin retorted, before realising what he'd said. “Er, I mean… so were all the amazing spells I had to cast while storming the dread fortress from whence I first happened across this rare find!”

“That’s one way to describe our trip to the craft store, I guess,” chuckled Laslow.

Niles rolled his eye. “Well, if he’s going to make up cards… hey, Lord Leo, where’s a bit of scrap paper?”

Leo tore a Cipher-card-sized corner off an anonymous and rather belligerent letter he’d received this morning, which claimed that his proposed policy of charging taxes proportional to the taxpayer’s income undermined all the principles on which the country was built. Niles produced a stub of pencil from gods knew where, and slashed it across the paper a few times. Once he was satisfied, he went back to the hearthrug, and threw his new “card” down triumphantly.

“There! I summon the King Snake. He has an attack power of sixty-nine, but his primary skill ‘Fully Erect’ multiplies that _by_ sixty-nine. So I guess I win the game.”

Laslow and Odin scrutinised his handiwork thoughtfully.

“You know, I’m pretty sure the, er… artings on that card violate some rule or another,” snickered Laslow. “And what even is sixty-nine times sixty-nine?”

“Well, I’m pulling out now anyway. Otherwise we’ll just end up spending the whole morning one-upping each other with fake cards.” Niles rose to his feet, and made for the door. “Gonna go do a coffee run, if anyone wants any.”

Laslow expressed that he would, and Odin nodded forlornly. Leo inspected the inside of his cup. “I’ve still got some here. Although I’m pretty sure it counts as iced coffee now.”

“Coffees all round, then. You kids be good while I’m away, now,” Niles drawled, as he pulled the door shut behind him with a sly creak. Once he was gone, Odin began gathering up the cards, looking a little dejected.

“Hey, Odin.” Odin’s head whipped around to an owlishly extreme angle when Leo called to him; Leo couldn’t quite decide whether to be amused or unnerved. “It occurs to me that Niles had already spent his turn on deploying Python. So you’re still technically the winner.”

“I am?” he cried; then, “I _am_! Huzzah! For once, humble Odin has vanquished the slippery serpent!”

It was amazing how quickly Odin sprang from one mood to another; as Leo noted wistfully, the only other person he’d met who could recover their spirits so easily was Elise. He wondered if he could justify slipping away to see her this morning. The last time he’d visited her grave had been the day before his coronation; after that, he’d been so caught up in all this Anankos business that he hadn’t had time for anything else.

As such, there was still a good deal of actual work here that needed doing. Aside from his usual efforts to efforts to run a country on a nonexistent budget, he’d also received reports of a rise in the city’s crime rate, particularly where charges of thievery and brawling were concerned. It was galling how little Leo could do to address these issues. The crimes were obviously motivated by desperation to survive these lean days, particularly with the winter coming on; but the donations from Hoshido only went so far, and he couldn’t conjure food and fuel from thin air - not on a large enough scale yet, at least, although Kamui would be testing the waters there today. And even if the city’s guard had been a legion of fine, hardy knights, as they had been before the war, and not the handful of shell-shocked, underpaid amputees who had survived it, suppressing these actions by way of Father’s preferred methods would still raise a host of other problems. Leo was ill-favoured by his people at every level of the feudal system already; if the peasants came to see him as the sort of king who answered the theft of a loaf of bread with brute force, there would be calls for riots, uprisings, perhaps outright revolution. The best-case scenario was that the kingdom would be overrun by anarchists, while Leo fled with his tail between his legs to live out the rest of his sorry life in some neutral territory; the worst-case scenario, and the most likely, was that Leo would find himself having to explain why he’d let the kingdom be overrun by anarchists to Xander in the afterlife.

Gods, Xander. As much as Leo knew, on an intellectual level, that Xander’s knack for statesmanship came from years of study and not any sort of otherworldly ability, it was still difficult to shake the feeling that he would never have let any of this happen. If their positions had been reversed - if Leo had died, and Xander had lived - he might have known of a faster way to snuff out these unrests, to plug up the national debt. With Camilla as his heir presumptive, and the likelihood that Xander would marry one day, Shigure would have been free to remain in Hoshido. Kamui would have three brothers who didn’t want to kiss her, and only untarnished childhood memories of the one who did. And when Anankos came…

What _would_ have happened when Anankos came? Would Xander’s force of will be enough to resist him, as Leo had resisted him? Or would he fall, as Father had fallen? Would the reversal of their positions actually have changed anything, or would these timelines just be running different courses to the same end?

Perhaps appropriately, it was Xander’s own retainer who interrupted Leo’s ruminating.

“Is everything all right, Your Grace?” he asked mildly. “You’ve been staring into space for a good ten minutes now.”

“Ah - yes, yes, I’m fine, thank you.” Leo nodded, then cursed himself internally for nodding too long and too vigorously to be seen as genuine. “I was just, er. Thinking that it’s been a while since I visited my siblings’ graves. I might go and pay my respects once I’ve finished working. - don’t give me that, Miss, you were fed less than an hour ago.”

Having finished using Laslow for his hairdressing skills, Siegkat had jumped down from his lap, and was now eyeing Leo’s cold coffee expectantly. Why she liked the stuff, Leo would never know; he always took it black with two sugars, in order to maximise the increase in energy he got from drinking it, and the result was a bittersweet brew that should have been thoroughly repellent to other humans, never mind a cat. He snorted and shook his head, as he pushed his seed-tray to one side of his desk and made to tackle the stack of reports he’d been putting off (thankfully, they were only a little smudged from his mishap with the watering-can). But he hardly had time to lift the first page from the pile before Laslow strode across the room and pinned it back down with an insistent fork of his fingers.

“This will all still be here in an hour,” he said quietly. His ever-present smile was still there, but here it had faded to a wistful shade of its usual self. “Nobody’s dying thought is ever ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work, and less with my family.’”

“Well, when you put it like that…” The inflection was on _that_ , but the operative word was _you_. If Xander’s retainer didn’t see it as negligence, then perhaps a brief outing was permissible after all - so long as Elise’s garden and the Hall of Remains were the only places he went to, and so long as he got back to work the _second_ he returned to his quarters. Leo allowed himself a rueful half-smile, and threw his collar onto his shoulders; only to shudder as he was abruptly and icily reminded that it was sopping wet.

“Tell Lord Xander I said hello,” Laslow called after him as he left; then, “Ah, wait, she’s - !”

Laslow was cut off mid-sentence by the door creaking shut behind Leo, so it took him a moment to work out what his retainer had been going to say. Fortunately, Siegkat seemed contrite enough to supply the rest with an apologetic meow.

“You want to visit Xander too?” Leo sighed. “You _are_ meant to be a house-cat, you know. But I guess I’ll allow it just this once. Just don’t go running off.”

He lifted the cat gingerly onto his shoulder (to her credit, she only dug her claws into him briefly), and set out down the hall.

“We’ll drop in on Elise first, though, since she’s the nearest,” he explained, as he struggled to open the door to her old courtyard garden one-handed.

Siegkat made an indelicate little sound.

“Yes, I _know_ she used to put her doll clothes on you,” said Leo patiently. “But she didn’t mean any harm by it. And she was very fond of you. If you can’t be civil, I’ll take you back to wait with Laslow.”

“Uncle Leo? Who are you talking to? - oh, what a pretty cat!”

Shigure stood in the doorway to his own quarters, swaddled in so many furs that he almost looked spherical. One mittened hand held a sketchbook fast under his arm; the other was clamped around a box of chalk which Leo recognised, with a pang, as having once belonged to Elise.

“Ah - good morning, Shigure,” said Leo, once he’d recovered from the initial surprise of his nephew’s sneak attack; the boy certainly did his ninja ancestry proud. “Are you headed for the garden as well?”

Shigure nodded emphatically. “Aunt Elise’s garden has the best flowers. I was going to draw some to send back to Aunt Oboro. And then she can make them into a kanzashi, and I can give it to Aunt Elise as a solstice present.”

“That’s very generous of you. Thank you for thinking of her,” said Leo, with the same level of cordiality as he would use when accepting a gift from an ambassador. He didn’t believe in patronising children; if they weren’t taught the correct way to behave by example, he didn’t see how they were meant to learn it at all. “I’d advise against going out on your own, though.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Shigure assured him. “You’re here. And Father’s with me too, but he’s hiding.”

“If you’d rather be alone, we can go out later,” said Lord Suzukaze diplomatically, from… wherever he was; it was difficult to even pinpoint where his voice was coming from.

Leo shook his head. “It’s fine. As you can see, I’m just stepping out to walk my cat,” he quipped. Siegkat verified this statement with all her usual wit. “Actually, I don’t suppose you’d mind helping me with the door?”

Shigure eagerly volunteered for the mission, drawing himself up to stand on his toes in his efforts to reach the doorknob. Siegkat made a disgusted sound, and tightened her grip on Leo’s collar, as they filed into the garden; the snow had begun to pile up again in the night, and was now knee-deep (or in her case, twice as deep as she was tall).

Of course, this was a problem for the king as much as it was for the cat.

“Oh. How do we get the gate open?” asked Shigure, voicing Leo’s own dilemma.

“I’ll clear it for you,” offered Lord Suzukaze, his voice echoing eerily in the frozen predawn air around them.

“It’s fine; I think I remember sensing a Dragon Vein the last time I was here.”

Still, so much for taking a _short_ break; even walking in snow this deep would be a hassle. Leo sighed, and set off in what he hoped he’d remembered as being the right direction, shuffling awkwardly through the powder and trying hard not to think about how cold and wet his clothes were getting. Gods, why hadn’t he thought to bring any sort of fire-magic tome?

His efforts were interrupted by a timid tugging on his sleeve.

“Yes, Shigure?” he asked amiably, although purely as a formality; from the way the little boy was staring longingly at Siegkat, it was easy enough to guess what he was after.

“Um. Your cat is very cute,” Shigure began hesitantly.

Leo laughed quietly, and crouched down to the boy’s eye level, trying vainly to ignore the ominous clicking behind his injured kneecap as he did so. “Yes, you can pet her. But don’t take it personally if she runs away; she tends to get a little frightened when meeting new people.”

Cautiously, Shigure took off his glove, and lifted a hand to her. Siegkat sniffed it for a moment, her eyes narrowing to slits. Then she ducked her head under his palm, purring louder than Leo had ever heard her purr for anyone besides Xander. Shigure’s little face lit up.

“She _likes_ me,” he whispered incredulously, as he ran his hand over the crown of her head. His pats were a little clumsy, his fingers pressed rigidly together as if he was petting a horse, but Siegkat didn’t seem inclined to fault him for that.

“I’ve never seen her take to anyone so fast before,” Leo mused. “You must have a way with animals.” Just like your aunt, he mentally added; considering the child wasn’t related to Kamui by blood, it was peculiar how many parallels Leo found himself drawing between the two of them. Probably this was why Leo himself was taking to his new role as uncle so quickly: if the idea had been less painful to contemplate, he might have been inclined to wonder if this was what their own child might have been like, in some other world where there had ever been any chance of their having one.

“I guess. I got on well with Pochi too. And then Marzia, and now… er, what _is_ the cat’s name?” asked Shigure. Leo told him; his nose wrinkled. “Is it rude if I say that’s a weird name?”

“No, I’ve always thought so as well,” Leo admitted, around the edges of a repressed snicker. “My brother chose it. He was given the royal sword Siegfried when he was younger, you see -”

“Siegfried? Like the Dusk Dragon’s champion?”

“Yes, the sword belonged to him originally,” Leo nodded. “It was the one given to him by the Rainbow Dragon, if you remember? - anyway, when Xander inherited the sword, he was so excited about it that he went through a phase of naming all his things after it. Eventually he got so used to that that he just kept doing it all his life. I swear, if he’d ever had children, he’d have given them names that started with ‘Sieg’ as well.”

“All his life?” Shigure tilted his head to one side, in that endearingly feline gesture that Leo would never stop associating with Kamui. “Is he not around anymore?”

Leo shook his head wordlessly. He straightened up to his full height again, and gave Siegkat a light scratch behind her ears. Shigure patted his arm, in the same way he’d patted Siegkat’s head.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

Well, even Leo had to smile at that; and if his smile was a little rueful, his nephew didn’t seem to notice. “It’s fine, I know you didn’t. Now, shall we continue our constitutional? I’m actually looking for something out here, so I’d like to resume my search if I can.”

“Oh, I can help you look,” Shigure offered. “What is it?”

Leo stopped walking for a moment, as he considered the best way to describe it. Now that he thought on it, this was arguably the most important part of the boy’s curriculum: in a court where kings were ostensibly chosen by divine right - especially one as rife with bastards as King Garon’s - the ability to use Dragon Veins was vital in proving the legitimacy of one’s claim to the throne. The pressure to master them, and as early in life as possible, had been crushing; that Leo himself had used his first Dragon Vein before he was three had been one of his mother’s favourite things to taunt Father’s other mistresses with.

“A Dragon Vein,” he said finally. “A sort of magical energy that rises up from wellsprings below the earth’s crust. It’s a little difficult to describe, but if you have dragon blood in your veins, then sometimes you can sense that energy in the air, and use it to power various spells - such as, in this case, melting the snow.”

“Oh, I know those.” Shigure nodded, a little spark of comprehension jumping up in his eyes. “They smell a bit like toast, don’t they?”

Leo considered this statement for a moment. “I suppose they do, at that. Anyway, I’m fairly sure it was over this way.”

They set off down the garden in a studious silence. Which is to say, Leo was studiously silent; Shigure trudged along beside him, with his hand raised to his eye in an imitation of a spyglass.

“What have you got your poor uncle doing now, Shigure?” called Lord Suzukaze, his refined tone tinged with gentle amusement.

“Sorry, Father, I can’t tell you,” Shigure replied airily. “It’s king stuff. Top secret.”

“Ah, I see,” said his father sagely; then added, in a parenthesis to Leo, “if he gets to be a nuisance, Your Grace, just send him back inside.”

“It’s fine. He’s proving an invaluable research assistant.” They had almost reached the spot now, but Leo still hadn’t picked up so much as a hint of a Dragon Vein. He was beginning to wonder if he’d misremembered, and the Dragon Vein was in one of the other gardens, when Shigure spoke again, in a more subdued tone.

“Um, Uncle Leo…?”

“Hm?” When Leo looked down, Shigure was biting his lip and avoiding his gaze. He obviously had something to say, but seemed to be in some doubt as to whether or not he should say it. “If you have a question, just go ahead and ask.”

“Okay. Your brother… was he supposed to be king instead of you?” he asked finally.

Oh.

“Yes, yes he was,” said Leo quietly. “But he died, and Camilla didn’t want to be queen; and so it fell to me instead.”

Shigure frowned at that. “Aunt Camilla didn’t want to? You mean you can _choose_ not to be king?”

Well, clearly _that_ had been a sensible thing to tell a child who’d been forced to leave his homeland on the sole excuse that he was to be the next king of Nohr. Leo cursed himself internally in every language he spoke.

“Well, it isn’t quite as simple as that,” he explained. “If there’s someone else who could do it in your stead, then yes, it is possible to refuse the crown then. But you and I don’t have that option. There isn’t anyone left after us, you understand.”

Shigure frowned. “But then who’s going to be king after me?”

“One of your children, I’d imagine,” Leo shrugged (much to Siegkat’s hissed chagrin). “Gods willing, I plan on staying alive until you’re an adult, at least.”

“Oh.” Shigure was silent for a long moment. They had reached the patio that served as a meeting-ground for Elise’s eclectic collection of statues, which she’d had moved here from various parts of the castle. They were carved into the likenesses of various historical figures, who had nothing in common aside from the fact that they all looked very grumpy, which she had inexplicably found hilarious. This congregation was presided over by old King Ulfric the Conqueror; he was hooded by a cowl of thick snow at present, but when it thawed, he would be regarding them imperiously from behind a pair of scribbled spectacles. Shigure seemed to find this riotously amusing when Leo pointed it out.

“But you mustn’t try anything like that yourself,” he stipulated quickly. Even if Elise probably would think it was funny, he mentally added.

“It’s okay,” Shigure agreed. “Aunt Kamui says you should only draw on paper; or your hand, if you need to remember something.”

“Gods, I’d forgotten she used to do that,” Leo laughed quietly, remembering how she had spent all their magic lessons painstakingly inking incantations onto her palm to practice later, but then invariably ended up transferring these notes to the tablecloth when they went for lunch.

Shigure tilted his head quizzically to the side. “You do like Aunt Kamui, don’t you?”

Leo blinked at him, incredulous. Inside his head, he laughed, long and bitterly, before agreeing that yes, he did like Kamui, as much as he liked water or air or books - as much as a bird liked the sky, as much as a tree liked the sun. Out loud, he simply said: “Well… of course I do.”

Shigure nodded, considering this for a moment. “You know what I think?” he asked, finally.

“Mhm?” In truth, Leo wasn’t sure which direction this conversation was going to take, but he felt a shudder of nameless apprehension. When his nephew confirmed it, he did so as casually as if they were discussing the weather.

“I think you should marry Aunt Kamui,” he asserted blithely.

Leo’s shoulders seized up so rapidly that Siegkat completely disregarded the snow in her haste to jump ship.

“That way you can have a kid,” Shigure continued, oblivious, “and they can be king or queen instead of me. And that is what I think.”

Leo opened and closed his mouth a few times. Curiously, nothing seemed to be coming out. Vaguely, at the back of his mind, he wondered if this was what being dead felt like.

Shigure’s face fell. “Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

“Idea… er…” Leo’s voice was starting to come back, but his vocabulary still hadn’t. “How, ah… how did you come by this idea, might I ask?”

“It’s what Aunt Camilla said. I asked if Aunt Kamui could be the queen instead of me being king, and she said Aunt Kamui can only be queen if she marries you.”

“Oh, Camilla said that, did she?” Leo made a mental note to have words with his sister later. If he could make her stop laughing long enough to get a word in edgeways.

“And also…” Shigure’s face grew a little forlorn then. “If she was married to you, she wouldn’t have to go away again.”

A thread of renewed guilt wound its way into the knot of anxiety forming in the pit of Leo’s stomach. When he’d decided to give her the chance to reject him at the end of her stay here, he had told himself that it was only Kamui’s feelings he was thinking of. But in truth, if this resolution had truly been made for her benefit, he would have also stopped to consider the impact it would have on her relationships with Shigure and Camilla; how, if he drove her away from Castle Krakenburg, she would never feel welcome to visit her nephew and sister again. No, it was a decision born of his own cowardice - he was intentionally ruining his friendship with her, in order to avoid facing the shame of loving her.

In that moment, Leo made his second resolution: at the end of Kamui’s visit, he would go through with his confession as planned. But the confession would be exactly that: an admission of his own sins, an entreaty for forgiveness, a cry for help. In speaking his feelings aloud, he would exorcise them, and when she did reject him, he would thank her for releasing him, and apply himself with all his heart to giving her the platonic friendship that she had always deserved; that she had believed they had.

“Well, when she does leave, it won’t be forever,” he said aloud, for his own benefit as much as the boy’s; he could feel a weight lifting from his chest even as he said it. “We’ll invite her back for extended visits like this one, as often as your lord uncle can spare her.”

“I know that,” Shigure nodded. “I’ll still miss her, though.”

“So will I. But I’m still not marrying her,” Leo insisted.

Shigure frowned. “Why not? You just said you liked her.”

“Well - that doesn’t mean I want to marry her,” Leo sighed. “And she definitely doesn’t want to marry me.”

“Have you asked her?”

Leo choked again at that; but then an idea struck him.

“Shigure,” he began sweetly. “You do know, don’t you, that if I married Kamui, you would be expected to attend the wedding?”

“Mhm?” Shigure nodded.

“And you also know what happens at a Nohrian wedding? There was a chapter about it in _Siegfried and Brynhildr_ , if you care to recall. I seem to remember it being quite beautifully illustrated,” Leo continued, not even bothering to repress his smirk. Horror began to seep onto Shigure’s face as he remembered. 

Leo’s grin widened as he made to strike the final blow.

“You’d have to watch us ki -”

“ _No!_ ” Shigure covered his ears with his hands, face contorted in a grimace that the gargoyles on the wall would have envied. “Oh, yuck! Horrible, horrible!”

“And that’s why you shouldn’t be encouraging me to get married,” grinned Leo. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Kamui we had this conversation.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t,” said Shigure emphatically.

“Good boy.”

“So should we - wait, what’s that?” Shigure whipped his head around, training his gaze on a point over his shoulder.

“Have you found the Dragon Vein?” How curious: Leo still couldn’t sense anything.

“I think so. Hold on.” The little boy shuffled a few feet away from his uncle, until he reached the sparse shade of a leafless magnolia. There, he stood his full height, his hands clasped beneath his chin and his face pinched in tight-lipped concentration. And yet there wasn’t the faintest sign of a Dragon Vein to be found anywhere in this part of the garden. Leo was just starting to conclude that Shigure hadn’t ever activated a Dragon Vein, and had assumed that they were playing a game, when a burst of golden fire enveloped the garden. The snow melted away from around their legs, exposing the pale grey paving-stones beneath; King Ulfric’s proud visage was unveiled in all its bespectacled glory; from behind the base of his statue, a very soggy Siegkat shot them a betrayed glare.

Shigure opened his eyes again. “Did I do it right? Aunt Hinoka told me how to, but I’ve never done it on my own before.”

“Er,” said Leo. His mind was already beginning to race. How had a four-year-old child managed to successfully use a Dragon Vein that Leo hadn’t even been able to sense was there? Was the boy some kind of prodigy? Or…

Oh, hell’s teeth. Of _course_.

Gods, how could he have been so _stupid_? When he cast that warp spell, he had assumed that it would be powered by the magic in his soul, the magic that powered all his life’s work; how could he have forgotten the magic coursing through his veins? The magic that was the only thing that marked him as the son of kings, and a rightful king himself?

“Uncle Leo?” Shigure’s voice seemed to be coming from miles away, but when Leo shook his head clear, his nephew was tugging on his sleeve again.

“I… what is it?” No, no, that wasn’t a good tone of voice. It was too ragged; it made it sound too obvious that something was wrong. Nobody must ever know what was wrong.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked meekly. “You went all quiet, and now you look kind of freaked out.”

“Er - yes! Fine! I’m fine!” Leo nodded, wincing internally at how high his voice had gone.

“Shigure!”

If Leo’s nerves were a mess already, Lord Suzukaze all but shot them to pieces when he suddenly sprang up in front of them.

“Did you do all this yourself?” he asked. His voice was as level as ever, but there was the very slightest hint of pride around the edges.

“Well, Uncle Leo helped me find it,” said Shigure graciously. Leo felt the slightest easing in his chest at that; if he had his way, the boy would never know how many times this single sentence would save his uncle’s life.

“The boy has a remarkable talent. Very few master the use of Dragon Veins at that young an age.” Leo recited the words, rather than speaking them, and with a lot more bitterness than his tone conveyed; it was a direct repetition of what his nurse had said to his mother, the day Leo had proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was King Garon’s son.

But would that proof still hold today? Nobody who had been there to see that day yet lived. If word got out that the king couldn't use Dragon Veins, it would be insultingly easy for his dissenters to argue that every time he had been seen to use them before had been some manner of trickery; firstly by Mother, to falsely legitimise her son, and then by Leo himself, to maintain the ruse. Evidence of Mother’s infidelity could be fabricated and presented, and thus could a universally-hated king be written off as a peasant impersonating royalty, and neatly dispatched to the dungeons, and from there to the headsman’s block.

Well, that was his afternoon spoken for. The reports could wait; in the meantime, he needed to talk to… actually, gods, who _could_ he talk to in this situation? There was no way in hell he could trouble Kamui or Camilla with this; they would never sleep again. Nyx probably wasn’t a safe bet either: Leo trusted her as an associate, and perhaps as a friend, but he still didn’t know her well enough to risk giving her the key to his complete undoing.

No, there was only one person who might have known how to resolve this; and he lay cold in the Hall of Remains, with his hands clasped around the hilt of Siegfried’s sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, yo! \o/ Sorry this chapter's a little unpolished (or a lot unpolished, heh); as it turns out, the downside to taking such a long break was that I kiiinda sorta totally forgot how to write, haha ;;;;;;; still, I'm back in a routine of writing daily again, so I should be back to my usual standard soon and I shouldn't need to take another break for a while, hee! Anyway, NOTES:
> 
> \- I’m sorry, I swear not all of my headcanons regarding King Leo’s policies are just me soapboxing about how awful the Tories are. Only, like, 99.999999999% of them.
> 
> \- I hope y’all like Selena, because she surprisingly turned out to be UNBELIEVABLY fun to write, and I’m definitely going to do something from her POV again :D
> 
> \- If you haven’t tried hot milk with honey and cinnamon: please try hot milk with honey and cinnamon. Like, even if you’re lactose intolerant and/or vegan, I’m told it’s just as good with soy milk. It’s the very best, honestly.
> 
> \- Even though she does manage to move on eventually (it’s going to be a very gradual process though), Camilla will probably continue to wear full mourning all her life, a la Queen Victoria. I like to think that, one day, she might start wearing some dresses that are blackworked rather than solid white (heh, a black-on-white colour scheme might actually be quite appropriate, considering who I’m planning to have her end up marrying later), but that’s the closest she’ll ever get to wearing normal clothes again. I’m sorry, Camilla :(
> 
> \- Look, I’m not saying that in a modern AU, Felicia’s texts would spam emojis like they’re hieroglyphs, but that’s exactly what I’m saying (she also still sends people lolcats, but that’s less relevant).
> 
> \- Python’s Cipher skill literally is just called “Fine, twist my arm”. It’s beautiful.
> 
> \- Now this is terribly exciting: Odin Dark’s hand-drawn Cipher card was one of the relics I was given the rare privilege of handling myself while researching this fic (courtesy of the curator of the National Museum in Windmire; let me just take a moment to thank her again for allowing me this opportunity, and for being so understanding upon learning that I had lied on the phone and am not, in fact, Lucy Worsley). For a 700-year-old trading card, it is remarkably well-preserved. The beautiful illustration, which would of course normally be a woodblock print, is rendered in a bold mix of media including wax, gilt powder, and imitation gemstones. The card boasts two “skills” (which, in the context of the game, affect the number of points the player can take from the other player at the end of each turn): “Bravest, Strongest, Wisest, Wittiest, Humblest Vassal”, the effects of which were explained in this chapter, and “Ultimate Twitching Spell Hand”, which purports to “automatically reduce all enemies’ attack to -999”. The card is currently on display as part of the museum’s new Leo II exhibit, and I thoroughly recommend going to view it if you can; one really must see it for oneself to truly appreciate the artistry of its creation.
> 
> \- 69 x 69 = 4761. You’re welcome.


	15. Be Thou for the People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo comes to regret passing up an opportunity to engage in casual grave-robbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: another mushroom samba, another ice mummy, and some more political stuff. I’m sorry, I swear I’ll bring back the funny D&D stuff next time around.

 

 

 

 

> _“Dear Shigure,_
> 
> _Thank you for your letter. By a stroke of luck, it arrived in Shirasagi right before I did. I was away yesterday, catching a famous criminal outside the city. It was a bit of an adventure… remind me to tell you the story the next time we see each other. Uncle Takumi and Aunt Orochi and I are still solving the mystery he left behind now, so we may be busy for a while, but I’ll definitely come to visit you as soon as that’s done. I’m glad you’re settling in well, and that you’re keeping busy. Thanks for the picture, too! I had heard of chalk being used by artists before, but this was my first time seeing a drawing like that with my own eyes. I hope you’re finding time to keep practicing between your lessons, you’re a very skilled artist._
> 
> _The air has been quite still the past few days, but today there is a light drizzle. It reminds me of the spring rains that fell the day you were born, the rains your mother named you for. You were such a little thing then… when Azura put you in my arms, I was so worried I’d drop you. It still feels like such a short time ago, but now here we are, keeping an intelligent correspondence (for your part, at least!). She’d be proud of how fast you’re learning, I think._
> 
> _Oh, I do have some news you’ll find exciting. Over in the stables, they finished running the pregnancy tests this week, and the stable-master tells me that three of the pegasi have managed to breed. The foaling usually takes place in the spring, so that may happen before you’re back to see it, but when the babies are big enough to ride, and old enough to live away from their mothers, I’ll bring one over for you. A crown prince needs a cool mount to ride around on, right?_
> 
> _I’m afraid I don’t have much else to say. We are all well here, and so much the better for having heard from you. I’ll be looking forward to the day we can see each other again, but until then, keep working hard at your lessons and your art, and look after your Aunt Kamui for me._
> 
> _Hoping that this letter finds you in the very best of health and spirits,_
> 
> _Aunt Hinoka”_
> 
> \- A letter from the Princess Hinoka to Prince Shigure, dated December 6th, 1319. Though a formidable warrior and a stern captain, the princess was nonetheless known by her contemporaries as a very kind and approachable person, and nowhere is this more evident than in her interactions with her nephews, upon whom she openly doted; a behaviour which would later carry over into her own efforts in raising the many orphan wards she and her wife would go on to adopt.

 

“… I’ve two fingers.”

“Good!” said Azama brightly. Beside him, his unfortunate captive continued to narrate whatever bizarre experience he was having.

“I’ve four fingers,” mumbled Kazama. This version of him really was a far cry from the refined crime lord they’d arrested; he shambled along between Hinoka’s retainers as if he was sleepwalking, stumbling as he fought to keep his balance with his brain thus addled and his arms still pinned to his sides by Orochi’s magic.

“Four fingers?” Setsuna echoed with a sage nod, as if it was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard. It might have been the most interesting thing Hinoka had ever heard too, but for a different reason.

“Hey, how long is that potion you gave him going to last?” she asked.

“It should start to wear off by the time we get to the castle,” Azama shrugged. “Enjoy the show while you can.”

As it happened, Hinoka definitely wasn’t enjoying the show; although the merchants setting up for the day seemed to be. Kazama had been like this for the entirety of their hike back to the capital, and while it was making it easier to lead him through the city’s streets, the prospect of dragging him all the way up Shirasagi-sama was one she quietly dreaded. The hike had been fun, but now she was beginning to wish she could have brought Pochi with them.

“In the future, people will drive automated wagons… and they will destroy the planet…”

“There is something bleakly funny about seeing him like this,” mused Shura. “Still, you’d think he’d have built up an immunity to the mushrooms’ effects, given how often we dealt in them…”

Orochi looked genuinely aghast. “Wait, you _knew_ a supplier of laughing caps personally, and you never told me? I’m hurt, Shura. _Wounded_ , even.”

“Can we just pick up the pace a little?” Hinoka pleaded. If lugging him up to the castle in this state was going to be a chore, then trying to get him to come quietly when he had regained enough control of his faculties to resist would be even worse.

Reaching Shirasagi-sama took a bit longer than it normally did, by virtue of having to actually wait for the succession of gates leading to the mountain to be opened, rather than simply flying over them. Shirasagi-sama was closed off from the lower town, and the world beyond, by a ripple of twenty-one walls; apparently there had been eighty-four when the castle was first built, but over the centuries that followed, the other sixty-three had been brought down by various sieges (mostly on the part of the Nohrians). The foundations of the walls remained, though, and nobody had built over them since.

“Now you know what we have to go through all the time,” Orochi quipped as they came to the fifteenth gate, punctuating the remark with a sharp little nudge, but in truth all this rigmarole only reassured Hinoka. Castle Shirasagi wasn’t just a home for the royal family, after all - it was also meant to serve as a refuge to their people, and by extension, their very culture, during times of war. The castle may not be as well-guarded against aerial attacks as she’d have had it be, but it was easy to see how this puzzle-box of walls had managed to shield their people from all the Nohrians’ invasion attempts, barely more than a year ago. She wondered, vaguely, if it might be possible to rebuild at least a few of the ruined gates, and whether that was something she ought to work on later. King Leo might not have any plans to sack the city again, and Shigure definitely wouldn’t, but who knew what the future held for the kings who came after them? And that was if they even got that far - if Orochi really had predicted some kind of cataclysm, then Hinoka would have their people meet it with every possible advantage.

But for now, she dismissed that thought; she could worry about it after they’d confirmed whether or not Kazama was the one blocking Orochi’s future sight.

At last they reached the heart of the walls, where Castle Shirasagi overlooked the city below from the top of Shirasagi-sama, a steep stone mound which (according to the _Book of Dawn_ , anyway) had once been a mountain. Legend held that it had been built by the Dawn Dragon’s anointed daughters, and that rather than building their castle on top of the mountain, as the peoples of the west did, the princesses had instead used their newfound mastery over the Dragon Veins to carve out a tower _from_ the mountain’s highest peak itself, and built around it in the years that followed. Hinoka wasn’t sure if there was any truth to that story, but she could see why other people would believe it: the narrow pathway that wound its way up the mountain’s side was just a little too conveniently shaped like a flight of rough-cut stone stairs to seem completely natural.

Still, she didn’t get to admire the scenery up here as much as she’d have liked; she spent most of this stretch steering Setsuna away from the edge of the rock face.

“Gods, you seem to be having an even harder time walking in a straight line than you do normally,” she muttered, as she used the butt of her spear as an impromptu crook to shepherd Setsuna gingerly away from the brink, for what had to be the third time in as many minutes.

“At least there aren’t any pitfalls up here, right?” Setsuna pointed out pleasantly. Hinoka’s heart softened a little at that; her retainer might be a bit of a handful, but she really had put in a good day’s work yesterday.

“Well, there shouldn’t be, anyway,” she chuckled. “Watch your feet regardless, though, okay?”

“I hope Ryouma’s holding up okay,” Orochi mused, behind them. “He was pretty dubious about watching Shiro on his own, and we ended up staying out just a _tiny_ bit later than I told him we’d be.”

“How long did you say we’d be gone?” asked Hinoka.

“About an hour and a half,” Orochi admitted. Hinoka felt very guilty for laughing at that.

It was still quite early in the morning when they approached the summit; the clouds above and below had just begun to cool from pink to grey. They spiralled thickly around the mountain this morning, discussing the possibility of rain amongst themselves. As Azama jollied him up the last of the steps, Kazama let out a loud groan, and stopped in his tracks.

“Gods, my head… wait, where - ?” It only took a few seconds for him to gather himself. He straightened up to his full height, and took stock of his surroundings with the air of a strategist surveying the field. “Castle Shirasagi,” he said quietly. “It’s been a while.”

Damn it.

Hinoka jabbed him with the butt of her spear. “You’re not here to sightsee. Keep walking.”

“So I’m on my way to be interrogated, as I take it,” remarked Kazama, his voice perfectly composed, silkily refined; which was pretty remarkable for a man who had woken from a psychedelic mushroom-induced haze to find himself bound and being marched at spearpoint up a steep mountain trail. “And where to after that, I wonder? The prison, or the headsman’s block?”

“That will depend on what comes to light during the interrogation,” said Hinoka icily. “Now keep walking.”

“And why would I do that?” he asked placidly, almost pleasantly. “If the best I can hope for is death, what incentive do I have not to simply stride over the edge?”

He started towards the brink. Hinoka hastily thrust her spear out, barring the way ahead, and swung it around into his solar plexus with a force that slammed him to the ground. Kazama grinned a vulpine grin as he sat up, arranging his legs under himself as neatly as if he was preparing to take his morning tea; if he'd felt any pain from Hinoka’s blow, there was no trace of it to be seen anywhere in his face or posture. “As expected. This isn’t a simple act of law enforcement; you _need_ me for something. Well, that’s reassuring…”

“You know, she only needs you _alive_ ,” Shura pointed out, approaching his old master with his knife already winking in his hand. “It’s no skin off her nose if I decide to demonstrate how we used to extract information from our prisoners back in Nohr.”

Hinoka instinctively flinched at that, and prayed that Kazama hadn’t noticed; but their captive only laughed an elegant hum of a laugh.

“And that’s why you’re the one who survived.”

He allowed Shura to haul him roughly to his feet, and to frogmarch him onward and upward, but in such a way as to make it extremely obvious that he was only _allowing_ it, rather than coming quietly because he had to. Well, that was unsettling; was he bluffing, or did he plan to summon more of those things? It struck Hinoka that, if he _was_ the one who had aided the Nohrians in assassinating Mother, then maybe bringing him into the castle at the heart of Hoshido’s capital hadn’t been the smartest idea.

She felt a rather sharp squeezing around her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” whispered Orochi, from behind her. “If he can’t use his arms, he can’t cast.”

Hinoka’s spirits lifted a little at that; this Kazama dastard might be a master criminal, but by gods, he wasn’t Orochi.

The path to the castle was blocked off by yet another gate; this time, though, the gate swung open before they approached it.

“Hinoka! Orochi!”

Sakura was running down the stairs to meet them, as quickly as she could without tripping. She was still wearing her slippers, and had thrown on a haori over her nightclothes. Hinoka felt a twinge of guilt at that; had Sakura forced herself up early to meet them, or had she been awake all night?

“We’re back now, Sakura,” she said aloud.

Sakura stopped in front of her, bent double as she fought to catch her breath again. “Y-you’re back! I was so wo - I mean, welcome home!”

Hinoka chuckled. “Yeah, sorry for being gone so long. We, ah, had an errand.”

“It’s, it’s okay. I was helping Ryouma take care of Shiro, mostly.”

“He wasn’t too much of a handful, I hope?” asked Orochi.

Sakura nodded. “Y-yes, he was very good. He cried a little at first, but I managed to get him to settle down for his nap.”

“Excellent,” said Orochi brightly. “And Shiro was good too?”

Sakura’s gaze moved from Hinoka to Shura; she let out a mortified gasp, and ducked into a lower bow than was really necessary. “And - and hello to you, Mr. Shura! I’m sorry, I-I didn’t see you before…”

Shura answered it with an even deeper bow. “No, please forgive me for not greeting you sooner, Lady Sakura.”

Sakura shook her head vehemently. “Oh, d-don’t say that, Mr. Shura! As p-princess, I’m the one who should be addressing you first -”

“Honestly, you two,” Orochi cackled. “Are we going to stand here apologising for our bad manners all morning, or can we get back to lugging this disappointing beefcake inside?”

Sakura led the way back up to the castle, clutching at Hinoka’s sleeve as if afraid that her sister would disappear again if her grip loosened even a little. Well, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been given cause to worry this past month, Hinoka mused ruefully, as her eyes wandered the grounds; the trees had shed their leaves completely now, leaving only sad, bare branches that almost looked Nohrian themselves. The skies had finished their debate, and decided in favour of a faint drizzle.

“Um, Hinoka?” asked Sakura, startling her sister out of her gloomy reverie.

“Hm?” Hinoka blinked at her for a moment; Sakura was pointing at her spear, of all things.

“S-sorry, I was just wondering… where did you get that?”

“Oh, one of the bandits I was fighting dropped it.” Hinoka held it up for Sakura to look at more closely. “Pretty cool, right?”

“Mhm.” Sakura nodded absently, as she examined the ornamentation on it intently. Her brow was furrowed, as if in confusion.

“Something wrong?”

Sakura’s eyes widened as she was startled back into the conversation; she laughed sheepishly. “Ah, I-I’m sorry! This is going to sound s-silly, but for a moment I thought it looked familiar.”

“Oh? Where did you see it?” Hinoka had to fight to keep her tone casual. Her heart jumped a little - she’d hoped someone at the castle might recognise it, but she hadn’t expected it to be _Sakura_ , of all people.

But her sister only shook her head. When she spoke, it was in an even more frantic stutter than usual. “In a, in a b-book somewhere, I think? I can’t remember. C-come to think of it, I d-don’t even think the thing I saw _was_ a spear. I’m sorry, I’m not being much help here…”

“Heh, it’s fine.” It really was; even if Sakura had misremembered, it was possible that the thing she’d seen was somehow connected to this spear - they might have come from the same culture, or something - and that somebody else would recognise it.

“B-but you _are_ all right, yes?” Sakura continued. “You didn’t get hurt out there, did you?”

“Eh, maybe a bit of bruising. Nothing to worry about,” lied Hinoka. Sakura relaxed a little at that.

“So where did you go?”

“Oh, we just went out to the Divine Dragon’s Forest -” Hinoka didn’t get any further than that before her sister let out an excited little cheep.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go there!” she cried. “Um. Was it… very much like the legends say?”

Hinoka nodded. “You’d have liked it, I think. It was very peaceful there.” Until you got to the underground criminals’ lair, anyway. “I’ll take you there sometime, if you want.”

“W-would that be okay?!” Sakura genuinely sounded incredulous. Hinoka laughed.

“I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn’t! Nah, we should hang out together more often, you and I.”

“I’d like that,” Sakura agreed; but then her smile turned a little subdued, and her eyes wandered westward.

“You’re looking kind of sombre there. What is it?” asked Hinoka, and immediately felt like an idiot. It was _obvious_ what was wrong: Sakura had one sister back now, but the other was still some thirty leagues away, with only their former enemy’s word for it that she would ever come back.

“Um.” Sakura turned back to Hinoka, her eyes wide with concern. “Hinoka, are you… okay?”

Wait, what?

“Ah, I-I’m sorry, that sounded less weird in my head!” Sakura winced. “I just. I know you spent all those years trying to get Kamui back, and now she’s gone again… I was just thinking, that can’t be easy for you.”

Well, that was the last thing Hinoka had expected to hear. It was also frighteningly accurate.

“It… is pretty tough,” Hinoka admitted. “But hey, she’s coming back at the end of next month, right?”

“R-right,” Sakura concurred, a little dubiously.

“She is,” Hinoka asserted; for her own benefit as much as Sakura’s. “Anyway, that’s enough about how I’m feeling. What do _you_ want to do today?” She pointed a backhanded thumb over her shoulder at Kazama. “My investigation’s kind of at a dead end until we get him to talk, so I’m pretty much free till then.”

“Oh, u-um, it’s okay, you don’t have to…” Sakura didn’t get to dither over it for long, though; her stomach answered for her.

Hinoka chuckled. “Feel like flying down to the market? I think I passed a couple of yakiimo vendors on my way back.”

 

* * *

 

“Ah… I can’t believe I finally get to take my baby sister to the market!”

Gods, Camilla was practically dancing through the gatehouse. Kamui had to laugh at the sight of her: her good mood was enormously infectious. “Easy, Camilla. We’re only going out to distribute the rations, remember?”

Behind them, Selena made a disgusted sound.

“Er, but we can go shopping after we’re done there,” Kamui hastily amended. “It’s important to support the local economy, and all that, right?”

Selena made an appeased sound.

If anything, that only seemed to delight Camilla all the more; she clapped her hands to her heart with a joyous laugh. “Oh, darling, you’ve grown into such an altruist! I couldn’t be prouder, truly.”

“Ha, I wouldn’t say that. Leo and Ryouma were the ones who actually provided the goods; I’m just the delivery girl,” Kamui pointed out, in a voice edged with another, more embarrassed laugh. But Camilla’s own amusement drained away from her face at that; she fell back a few steps to catch Kamui by the arm and speak in a more hushed tone.

“Your modesty does you credit, dear,” she muttered, out of the corner of her mouth, “but Leo didn’t send you out to do this because he couldn’t be bothered to go himself. If he wants it to look like you’re the one behind this, you really should take advantage of that; not everyone in this city loves you as much as we do, remember.”

Well, that much was evident in the glares of the guards they passed on the way out of the castle. Somehow, Kamui doubted that giving their families a month’s worth of food would be enough to soften the open contempt etched into their faces, but she could see Camilla’s point.

“I guess being the delivery girl is a pretty important job, now that you mention it,” she conceded, hoisting her sack a little higher on her shoulder. She was the only person carrying anything: Mozu was bringing the rest by cart, again at Camilla’s suggestion. Kamui wondered, with a rush of affection for her sister, just how far this had all been planned in advance to mitigate some of the people’s disdain for her.

Of all the mornings to take a trip into town, they had picked the best one. It was still chilly out, but it was a crisp, clear chill that served to invigorate rather than to irritate. Last night’s snow had mostly been salted and shovelled away from the road, exposing the black cobbles beneath, but a few little sleety bits still lingered in the cracks, catching onto Kamui’s socks in clumps, and the stuff blanketing the roofs remained. The sun had not yet risen, and wouldn’t for another hour or so; it was still the moon that lit their way, but the stars were beginning to squint sleepily at them in the fading of the predawn sky. The streets were still largely deserted, save for the sentries bantering amongst themselves at the junctions between the main roads.

“Well, _that’s_ going to make a difference,” Selena snorted; Kamui could practically see her roll her eyes without looking round. “Because all crimes totally happen on the open roads, right? Don’t bother watching the back alleys, or anything…”

They ducked into one such alley themselves, and headed to the underground via the wynd Shura had shown Kamui the last time she was here: it dipped down into a spiralling slope that ostensibly led to the sewers, lit dimly by a few snickering torches dotted along its length.

“It’s spookier down here than I remember it being,” remarked Mozu, with a nervous chuckle.

“Well, we were in a larger group the last time,” Kamui pointed out. And we were all armed, she mentally added. The Yato was still sheathed under her cloak, but there was a limit to how much use it would be in a fight; she made a mental note to have Jakob and Kaze train her in the basics of knife-work later.

A dangerous little voice in her head pointed out that technically, she was armed at all times with or without a blade on her belt, but she was very quick to toss that thought aside.

Fortunately, they hadn’t been walking long (leading a cart along a downwards slope does generally demand a bit of haste, after all) before their path turned around one final bend and out into the underground. These streets, too, were quieter than they had been the last time Kamui had walked them, but that could be credited to the time of day: the merchants in the central market round were just beginning to set out their wares, shopkeepers to open their doors.

There was much pointing and whispering when the four of them led their cart inside. Camilla took a strategic step back, placing Kamui at the front of their procession. The gesture was daunting, as much as it was reassuring: while the intent behind it was still touching, and while Camilla and their retainers still had her back, nobody else now stood between Kamui and the people of the underground - no longer could she hide behind her sister from the animosity she had so thoroughly earned. As they crossed the bridge leading to the market round, more faces began to emerge, at the windows and in the shadows; each one eyed her with some mix of fear, and sorrow, and contempt, in varying ratios. Kamui grit her teeth, forcing herself to look directly back, to meet each gaze she passed. She would see many such glares today, and every other day she spent in the city; at the very least, she owed it to these people to face the ire she had earned, rather than shrinking away from it.

When they reached the market, though, she found one face that looked a little friendlier: an old lady stood at the centre of the round and was waving them over. It took Kamui a moment to recognise Elise’s old nanny, who had given her party refuge last year before they stormed the castle; she hadn’t been expecting to meet her again, and certainly not to be so warmly received.

“There you are, milady!” she said brightly, as Kamui approached. “His Grace said I was to wait for you here. Wasn’t expecting you to show up this early, though!”

“I was pretty keen to get started,” Kamui replied, returning her smile gratefully. “Wait, Leo told you to expect us?”

“Well, his retainer did anyway; the flatterer with the cheeky grin. Normally I help him hand these out, but he said you’d be doing the honours this month.” Her smile widened then. “Oh, and you’ve brought Lady Camilla!”

“Hello, Cassita.” Camilla stepped forward to clasp the old lady’s hands in her own. “It’s been too long.”

“Hasn’t it just? You were knee-high when I saw you last. How are you keeping these days?”

Camilla’s already-wistful smile grew still sadder. “Oh, we’re getting by. One day at a time. And yourself?”

“Just the same; I’m getting by.” A shadow passed over Cassita’s face for a moment; but then she must have remembered whose presence she was in. She withdrew one hand from Camilla’s to pat Kamui on the shoulder.

“Of course I don’t fault you for any of it, dear,” she said warmly.

Kamui swallowed hard, fighting back the stinging behind her eyes; these weren't words she’d expected to hear from anyone, and she certainly hadn't known how much she’d needed to hear them. “Thank you, Cassita.”

“It’s all those fellows in the government that were to blame, I say,” Cassita continued. “Ask them to solve a problem without hitting something, and they’ll all get a bit of a headache. You make sure that brother of yours doesn’t turn out like that, won’t you, milady?” she added, as an aside to Camilla.

“Oh, I don’t think we need to worry on that count,” Camilla laughed fondly.

“He always was a good egg, little Lord Leo,” Cassita agreed.

“Well, we _are_ the ones who raised him that way,” Camilla pointed out. Cassita snorted.

“Ha! This is very true. Now, then, shall we be off? - and what’s this?” she asked, pointing out Kamui’s sack.

“Oh, these?” Kamui shrugged the sack down from her shoulder, and opened it to reveal the plants Leo had grown. “We’re giving out extra this month. To celebrate Leo’s coronation.”

“It was Kamui’s idea,” put in Camilla, before Kamui could explain any further.

“Well, it’s a lovely idea. I’m sure everyone will be very grateful for it.”

Cassita was all good-natured briskness, like a mother hen herding her chicks, as she led them over another bridge, and further down into the underground. They passed through another tunnel, which opened onto another cavernous chamber that, if the grates forming narrow skylights in the ceiling above were anything to go by, had been built to serve as a sewer. But where the first of these spaces had played host to a marketplace, this one served as the foundation for some fifty or sixty squat crannogs, dotted about the waterway in a higgledy-piggledy maze of damp timber and mismatched bricks, connected by a spiralling causeway.

“We normally start with the folks who need it most, and work our way round to everybody else from there,” Cassita explained gently.

Seeing her meaning took only a cursory glance at the people who answered their doors to them; rather, at the people who peered cautiously through the cracks in the wood before answering. They regarded Kamui with the same hint of resentment as the people she’d met on the way in, but this time it was also extended to Camilla, and there was no hint of recognition in their wide, glassy eyes: they didn’t resent Kamui for the sword on her belt, but rather for the wool and fur on her back, for the muscle on her bones. It struck Kamui achingly that these people wouldn’t distinguish her from any other aristocrat, simply because for them, there was no point: their houses were just as draughty and squalid, their clothes just as threadbare, their stomachs just as empty, no matter who won a war or sat on a throne.

Their expressions softened, even grew excited, when they heard the carthorse coming up the causeway behind her, but Kamui’s own distress persisted. As she handed over each sack of grain, each parcel of daikon and salted fish, she found herself wondering more and more how they could be expected to make these portions last, and stretch to feed an entire household, until the next donation. But the people accepted them with as much grateful disbelief as if she’d brought them a cartful of Valentian oranges.

“These packages are always a godsend, milady,” remarked a young woman who had come to the door hobbled by two very thin children clutching at her skirt. Her expression grew perplexed as she brought out a tomato. “Er, but what are these? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Tomatoes,” Kamui explained, for the sixth time that day. “King Leo sent them out to celebrate his coronation.”

“Her idea,” Selena put in, pushing Camilla’s story; her liege herself had fallen into an ashen silence from the moment they had gone into the first house.

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Look at this!” she cried, holding the fruit out to her children (were they hers? Or were they more orphans, who had just been lucky enough to find someone willing to take them in?). “How d’you think we should cook them? They’re special, so we have to make them last, okay?”

Kamui just barely managed to bite back her sigh until they’d left that house. Gods, she was disgusted with everyone, but most of all herself. It was all very well to tell herself she was making a difference by handing out Ryouma’s rations, and that Leo’s raised taxes meant that everyone in Nohr had had to tighten their belts since the war, but the truth was that they were both still unimaginably better off than the people they claimed to be serving. Gods knew how many tomatoes Leo went through each day, and Kamui would probably come home to more tea and cakes than she could eat herself. They could play at being charitable all they wanted, but until that charity was no longer needed, they really were only playing.

“They’ll make it stretch,” Mozu assured her, in response to her extended silence. “There’s a lot you can do with a bit of rice and some veggies.”

Kamui shook her head; she had no use for reassurance. “Making it stretch isn’t good enough. As soon as we get back to the castle, I’m going to have quite a few things to pester Leo about.” Chasing up some more patrons to finance the founding of Annelise Academy, for a start; if there was one thing she’d learned today, it was that the Nohrian nobility could well afford it, no matter how much they liked to think otherwise.

“Quite right, darling,” Camilla concurred shakily. She looked rather queasy herself; today was probably as much of a wake-up call to her as it was to Kamui. “We’ll have to make a habit of coming out here, I think.”

Kamui reached up to squeeze her shoulder. “I think we should, yes.”

Once they’d finished their circuit of the slum, they moved on to another part of the underground; an area which Kamui recognised as the neighbourhood where Cassita’s own house stood. Where the slum had been taken up entirely by the old sewer-works, in this place the water flowed around a cobbled round, like the one in the market. Here the houses were sturdier, their inhabitants less starved; they were still poor, but not in such dire straits as their neighbours out in the crannogs. Even so, looking around still left Kamui with a lingering sense of alarm.

“There’s a lot less people about than there were the last time,” Mozu observed, voicing Kamui’s own concern.

“Um. Was this…” Kamui couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

“The war took most of them,” Cassita confirmed. “I make sure the kids get fed; I have some savings put by from when I worked up at the castle, and Lady Elise left me enough to last a good while.” She sighed, then. “She was such a good girl…”

The mention of Elise was yet another dagger in Kamui. Her dragonstone began to pulse under her pinafore. She opened her mouth, to apologise, and then to apologise for the fact that her apology was meaningless, and that if she’d just made Elise stay with Cassita that day, then she might have been joining in with this conversation now.

But Camilla spoke first.

“If you need more support than that, come to me,” she said fiercely, grasping the old lady by the shoulder. “ _Directly_ to me.”

Cassita laughed, and patted her hand. “You’re both such generous girls. Makes me proud to have raised you, Lady Camilla; and Lady Kamui, through you.”

“Well, on that note, shall we crack on?” asked Kamui, nodding in the direction of the nearest house.

As expected, Kamui was met with a much icier reception here than she was in the slum. While the people in the crannogs had invited her inside, those who answered their doors to her here stood dominating the doorway, as if they expected her to break into their houses and slaughter what remained of their families; some didn’t open the door at all, and told her to leave the food outside. When Camilla told people that the tomatoes were Kamui’s idea, they would invariably eye the fruit suspiciously, as if to check it for poison.

One man handed it back to her.

“Unless it can bring back the dead, I have no use for it,” he retorted, before turning and slamming the door.

“You’re welcome,” Selena hollered after him.

“Don’t take it to heart,” soothed Cassita. “He and his wife were both soldiers.”

Kamui wasn’t soothed in the least. Her dragonstone had been drumming against her chest the whole time they’d been here, but now it felt like it might smash through her sternum. She’d needed to see the damage she’d done, and she deserved to face the consequences; but if she transformed here…

“Camilla, can you handle the next couple of houses?” she asked, tacking on a weak smile. “I need to sit down for a moment. And… I think it’ll be better received if you’re the one handing it out.”

“We can wait for you if you want,” Camilla offered.

“N-no, it’s fine! I just… I kind of need to be by myself for a moment.”

Camilla began to move towards her; Kamui shook her head gently.

“Well… if you’re sure, darling,” she said dubiously. “You just catch up to us once you’re ready, okay?”

Kamui nodded, waving them off with her fixed smile until they’d reached the next house. Once their attentions were no longer on her, she slumped down onto her knees, clamping her hands over her dragonstone as she fought to force it still. She fell back on an old technique Felicia had taught her, for when she felt angry or scared: you would hold an image, in your head, of something that made you happy, and focus all your attention on that until you forgot what it was that had upset you. Unfortunately, the happy thoughts Kamui had come up with at the time were all ones that made her heart hurt worse now: building a snowman with Elise, sparring with Xander, sharing a joke with Lilith and Flora. She wracked her brains for another one; something that the war hadn't managed to ruin.

An image sprang to her mind almost immediately: she was in Valla, sitting with Leo under that huge tree. She remembered the feeling of his hand on her face so vividly that she could almost feel it again now - the warmth of his palm, the gentleness with which his thumb had traced the line of her cheekbone, the softness of his voice as he assured her that he felt the same destructive urges she did; that she wasn’t alone, that she wasn’t wicked. But in her mind’s eye, Leo lifted her chin higher than he had that night, bringing her face up to his own. His dark eyes were already narrowed in a gentle smile, but they fell closed entirely as he tilted his head to one side and drew nearer, his lips already parting slightly -

Kamui pushed the thought to the side; no decent person could be happy thinking of something like _that_. She settled on a more wholesome image: eating toasted mochi in the garden at Castle Shirasagi, with Takumi and Sakura.

That was a start; the dragonstone still pounded in her hands, but its beating was slower now, and less erratic. It did sharpen her sense of guilt, though: how could she have sat idly in the sun eating mochi, when there were people in the world who had to make a small sack of grain and a few vegetables last for a month?

She swallowed, and tried to think of something else. Showing Gunter her drawings, when she was little; it was one of the happiest memories she had about a person who was still living.

The pulsing under her fingers died down briefly; but just as quickly flared up again when she remembered who was using Gunter’s body now, and wondered with some alarm if Jakob was still watching him.

Something else, something else. Nothing that would make her think of food, or Anankos, or kissing Leo. Nothing that would remind her of all the lives she’d ruined. Gods, there had to be _someone_ whose life wasn’t any worse for Kamui’s having been in it…

Five years ago, in a village in the mountains of Hoshido, Hinoka fell weeping into Kamui’s arms.

The memory only flashed across her mind’s eye for a moment, but that one moment was enough. It wasn't a particularly vivid memory, and in its original context it hadn't even struck her as particularly happy; all she’d felt, at the time, was relief that nobody had died. But now, with the knowledge of how desperately Hinoka had fought, just to see her again - how that quest had shaped everything Hinoka stood for, everything she had become, how much she loved the life she’d made for herself because of it - it was probably the sweetest memory Kamui had. It was the memory of witnessing the happiest moment of another person’s life, and being the cause of that joy.

The dragonstone hummed gently under Kamui’s hand. She released her grip on it, and fell back onto her heels with a sigh, and a resolution to send her sister a letter as soon as she got back to the castle.

“You done now?”

Kamui jumped at the sudden sound. Selena was crouching beside her on the cobbles, looking rather uncomfortable.

“Uh,” she said. “I thought you’d gone on ahead with Camilla?”

Selena snorted. “Yeah, I was just gonna leave you out here without a guard. Y’know, you might not care if you get shanked, but Lady Camilla would.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Kamui laughed wearily, straightening up. “Shall we go catch up to them, then?”

Selena stayed on the ground. “Wait. I needed to talk to you anyway.”

“Hm?” Kamui felt a little ripple of dread go through her, as she remembered how intently Selena had glared at her over breakfast; still, if that had been brought on by something she’d done, perhaps they could resolve it now. She sat back down. “Okay. What’s on your mind?”

“So Odin filled me in on what happened the other day,” Selena began. “How you tried to challenge… _that_ guy, and then your sword broke.”

“Oh!” Kamui’s heart lifted a bit; mostly at the thought that Selena might have some more information there, but she was also rather relieved to know that at least there was one person in this city who wasn’t actually angry with her. “He did say you came from the same place he did, now that you mention it.”

“He told me he’d said that too.” Selena sounded faintly annoyed about that for some reason. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you actually have a plan for what to do next.”

“Not as yet, sorry,” Kamui cringed sheepishly. “We’ve written to the Rainbow Sage, to see if he knows a way to repair the sword, but it’ll probably be a while before he gets back to us.”

“Yeah, I don’t know who that is,” said Selena flatly, “but does that mean you still have the pieces?”

“Some of them.” Kamui produced the Yato’s hilt. “I’m afraid I lost a few fragments of the blade, but even if we could just get it to work as some kind of magic dragon-slaying dagger…”

“Ha!” Selena punched her palm triumphantly. “I knew you weren’t gonna be completely useless!”

“Er, thank you?”

“Okay, let’s get a look at this.” Selena snatched the sword (such as it was) from Kamui’s hands and examined it with a careful eye. “Wait, what’s this?”

Kamui cocked her head to the side. “What’s what?”

“This.” Selena was pointing out the red stones set into the blade, and the two indents below them. “Are there supposed to just be two of them, or did the other gemstones fall out when it broke?”

Kamui frowned as she took the hilt back, tracing the outline of them with her finger. “No, there’s always been… actually, wait, no there hasn’t.”

The first of the two stones had appeared after their first visit to Notre Sagesse, when the Rainbow Sage had fused the Yato’s power with Takumi’s bow’s. The second had been added during the final battle with King Garon - actually, the Yato had fused with Ryouma’s sword that day, hadn't it?

Kamui’s fingertip dipped into one of the empty sockets. Were these meant to house two more stones? Was that why the sword hadn’t worked against Anankos - because it still wasn’t the Fire Emblem yet?

When she voiced these musings to Selena, the girl took them in with a series of brisk nods; when they reached the end, her face split into that slightly mocking grin again.

“Thank gods, someone else in all this actually has two brain cells to rub together. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.” She stood up, pulling her arms into a catlike stretch. “Anyway, that’s kind of all I wanted to talk about. Now hurry up and let’s get back to the others; I don’t want to still be here when all the good shops have closed.”

Kamui sprang to her feet again. “Yeah, I’ve probably worried them enough. Thank you, Selena.”

It was with a newfound resolve that she walked on, past the houses of all those who rightly despised her. It was true that she couldn’t repair the damage she had done to them in the past; but she would fight with everything she had to give them a future.

“Hope you’ve got a spare five hours, Leo,” she muttered. “We’re going to have a lot to talk through.”

 

* * *

 

The dead kings slept in the Hall of Remains, and they slept mostly undisturbed.

The path to their tombs was a branching spider’s-web of interlocking corridors, impassable to any save those who had been trained from infancy to memorise each twist and turn. The hall had been a labyrinth when the castle was first built, and each generation had seen a host of new tombs dug into the mountainside; now, eight hundred years later, it spanned three floors.

It was difficult to say which floor they were on now: each new stretch of corridor down here looked very much like the last, and to the untrained eye there was no way of being sure that they weren’t just going in circles. Even the skeletons lying slumped against the walls looked vaguely similar to one another.

“Do you get many grave-robbers down here?” asked Leo, as they passed another one.

“Not these days, no. Some of these fellows are apprentice Keepers who forgot their training,” said the Crypt-Keeper, around the edges of a dry, choking sort of laugh. Well, that was worrying.

“So do you have any surviving apprentices now?” Leo ventured dubiously.

The Crypt-Keeper laughed all the harder at that. “Keep your hair on, Your Grace. I might work with him every day, but I’m not that close to death yet.”

Well, that didn’t answer the question.

Up on Leo’s shoulder, Siegkat gave a doubtful little meow at that, and her erstwhile mount could hardly blame her. The Crypt-Keeper was a wizened little man who would have been very short when standing his full height; bent double under the weight of his years, he only came up to Leo’s hips. He was a frail thing, too, his pale, papery skin wrapped so tightly around his bones that he looked less alive than the corpses he guarded. Leo had found himself spending most of this outing trying to figure out what he’d do if his guide suddenly expired while they were still down here.

“I’ve been meaning to ask what you’re here for, little one,” the Crypt-Keeper remarked, turning back to grin a toothless grin at Siegkat. “Are you here to visit, or is His Grace planning to leave you as a sacrifice?”

Siegkat protested loudly at that.

“I would never,” Leo assured her, scratching behind her ear. She looked at him oddly, her lamplike eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. “ _Really_.”

The old man hacked up another laugh at that, and turned his head to shine a light on the door at the far end of the passage they were following. He was wearing an odd sort of helmet: it had a long iron hook, like the bracket for a tavern’s sign, protruding from the front, from which a small lantern hung, lighting the way ahead while keeping his hands free.

“And this here is your lord father’s tomb, if you feel like paying your respects to him as well.”

Leo faltered at the sight of the heavy iron door. Part of him felt that he ought to go in, to put on a show of respect for his predecessor and father. But spiritually, there was no benefit to be had from the experience: the tomb was empty. Father had left no remains behind when he died. The figure that lay in his sepulchre was sculpted from marble; the likeness wasn’t quite close enough for Leo to accept it as a substitute for his father’s face, but that in itself was not so unsettling as what it symbolised. In accordance with the Book of Dusk’s teachings, it was tradition in Nohr to freeze the dead before burying them, so that their bodies would be preserved well enough to fight when they rose again at Fimbulvetr; it was how the tome used in their funeral rites had got its name. The Book of Dusk was just as blunt about what would happen to those whose remains were destroyed, or left to rot: either their resurrection would be a torment, as they struggled to move in a body that was falling apart, or they simply would not return at all, and would be forced to wander in an endless oblivion.

Honestly, Leo had always been dubious as to how much stock to put in most of the scriptures. After all, there was no way of telling which words really did come from the Dusk Dragon, and which ones had been added or omitted by the clerics who had first compiled the Book of Dusk, for the purpose of pushing an agenda of their own. But ever since his first trip to Valla, the concept of Fimbulvetr had seemed worryingly plausible: he knew now from personal experience that the First Dragons were capable of raising armies of the dead to fight for them. And if Fimbulvetr was real, what did that mean for Father’s soul?

“Your Grace?”

Leo blinked himself back to reality. The Crypt-Keeper was waiting in front of the door, looking rather nonplussed. “Are you well, Your Grace? You’ve been staring into space for five minutes.”

“Ah. Yes, um.” Leo shook his head lightly until it was clear again. “No, I don’t believe I will visit my father today, thank you. I only brought one animal sacrifice, after all.” He lifted his hand to pat Siegkat, who understandably snapped at his fingers.

The Crypt-Keeper made that horrible coughing sound again. “As you say, Your Grace. In that case, Lord Xander’s tomb is a little ways further in.”

The doors they passed now made Leo uneasier than any of the others had: most of them stood open, and the chambers they led into lay empty and waiting. Whoever had added this floor had been rather optimistic about the future of the Krakenburg line: in truth, the last king of their house to be buried here would be Leo himself. A small, ghoulish part of him began to wonder which of these sepulchres would be his.

At last they came to another closed door. The Crypt-Keeper halted, and produced two heavily-burdened rings of keys from his belt, jingling each one experimentally before he found the one he wanted. When the door was unlocked, it swung open with a metallic creak that set Leo’s teeth on edge.

Leo took a hesitant step inside. He hadn’t been in here since the funeral, but it wasn’t as if he’d missed anything in that time. Xander still lay on his bed of obsidian, under a cover of frost, gripping Siegfried’s hilt with both hands. A few of his possessions lay propped against the wall, but these were mostly intended to serve the same purpose as the sword - here a shield, there a javelin.

“Thank you,” said Leo, to the Crypt-Keeper; then, as the light behind him began to recede, “wait, where are you - ?”

“Just thought I’d give you some privacy, Your Grace,” the old man explained gently. “If you need me, just clang on the door a few times. Course, I can’t promise I’ll hear you…” he chortled, as his head disappeared behind the wall.

Leo was unamused.

Once he’d been left alone (and once he’d checked the hallway, to be sure that the Crypt-Keeper hadn't run off on him), Leo approached his brother. Siegkat stirred a little on his shoulder.

“Well, here he is,” he said quietly. The cat tilted her head to the side, then jumped down and began to clamber gingerly over Xander, in the same way she’d walk on Leo, on mornings when he’d actually slept, in order to bully him into getting up and feeding her. She patted his cheek with her paw a few times; when this didn’t have the intended effect, she gave a defeated little yawn, and curled up on the stone beside him, nestled into the crook where his head met his neck, and his neck met his shoulder.

“Er, sorry, Xander,” Leo felt like he had to say. “I hope you don’t mind my bringing her to visit.”

Unsurprisingly, Xander said nothing. Looking at him was already starting to make Leo feel peculiar. When you looked past the ice, he did seem more asleep than dead; but where most people described the departed this way and meant that they looked peaceful, Xander looked like he was having a nightmare. The cares he had borne in life remained frozen into place on his face, and his grip around his sword’s hilt was still as firm as it had been when his life depended on it. It stung to look at him this way: even in death, he could find no rest.

“Gods, I hardly know how to begin,” Leo admitted. “Er - I’m king now, I guess. I’m… not wearing the crown today. It’s pretty heavy; made for someone like you, rather than someone like me, I suppose.”

Again, Xander didn’t respond, but if he could have done, he’d probably have looked askance in discomfort, before gruffly assuring Leo that he’d grow into his role if he applied himself more. Leo would have deflected that, and assuaged the underlying concern, with a sarcastic joke, and then the topic of conversation would have shifted to something less negative.

“Camilla’s doing a little better, though,” Leo offered. “She was… well, you’ll have seen for yourself, probably. I’m told she only ever left her room to visit your grave, and Elise’s. But she’s a lot more like herself these days. She’s gone out with Kamui today, to distribute food to the people in the slums.”

Xander would be much relieved to hear that; perhaps he was, wherever he was watching from, even if it didn’t show on his mortal face.

“It was Shigure that really helped her come out of it, I think,” Leo continued; the words were coming more easily now. “Er, that’s Azura’s son. You never met him, but he’s a pretty great kid. He was asking after you this morning, actually; he wanted to come and see you too, but I didn’t really want to be responsible for keeping track of a child _and_ a cat down here.”

The corner of Xander’s mouth actually did quirk up, then; Leo very nearly died himself, until he saw that it was only Siegkat rubbing her head against his cheek. Even so, it was starting to feel like his brother was actually in the room with him, absently listening with half an ear while the rest of his mind was taken up with the kind of constant fretting Leo had only come to appreciate when he’d inherited it himself.

“It’s funny,” he remarked aloud. “Back before you - back when you were still around… I never really understood how damn difficult your job actually is. - I mean, I _thought_ I did, but I’m only now realising just how deceptively easy you made it look. If I’d known that at the time, I’d have…” The words tangled in his throat; he let them die away with a sigh. “Then again, maybe it really _was_ easier for you. At the very least, you were the queen’s son. If you’d been king, not everyone would have wanted you on the throne, but nobody would have said that you had no right to it.”

Leo couldn’t bring himself to press the point any further than that, to speak of what he’d just learned in the garden. As it was, he could already imagine how discomfited his brother would have been by this outburst. He’d not even have indulged it; more likely he’d have shaken his head in disdain, and demanded that Leo pull himself together and stop being so melodramatic.

Besides, there no way to be sure that the Crypt-Keeper wasn’t eavesdropping, or that he’d keep quiet about what he heard.

“Sorry,” Leo said, instead. “Didn’t mean to get all sombre on you there. I should probably get back to work, anyway; the country’s not going to run itself, and it’s not like I have anyone to help me out with it.” He paused, then. “Well, that’s not fair to say. Kamui’s supporting me through a lot of it at the moment - it feels odd to praise her in front of your grave, but you know our… you know Kamui. She’ll regret your battle until the day she dies. I don’t know how you’d feel about her being here again, but I know Elise would want her back in our lives.” Leo caught himself before he could pursue this line of thought any further; he didn’t want to quarrel with his brother, even if Xander wasn’t currently capable of quarrelling back. “Anyway. My retainers have been indispensable, too, and so has Laslow. Although most of his input involves passing on the things he learned from you, so indirectly it’s like you’re the one guiding me there. So… thanks for that.”

A lump began to rise in his throat as he said this, which he was quick to swallow down; he really should leave, he decided, before he embarrassed Xander any further.

“Xander… I’m not a fraction of the king you’d have been. I don’t think I ever will be. But I’ll do what I can to be one who doesn't bring you shame, at least. So… please do keep an eye on my progress.”

It was probably only Leo seeing what he wanted to see, but for a moment it did look as if the furrow in Xander’s brow had softened slightly.

Leo sighed, and scooped up Siegkat, carrying the sleeping cat in the same way he would a sleeping infant. He inclined his head to Xander, taking in a last look at his brother, before turning from him to knock neatly on the door.

There was no response.

Leo drew a shuddering breath in through his nose, and rapped again.

Silence.

Panic gripped Leo. He stuck his head out through the doorway, trying to remember the route they’d taken to come in - but the door opened onto two corridors, running parallel to each other, that branched off in different directions as they went further up. Which one had they come down?

He had just flipped Brynhildr open, balancing it awkwardly on his hip and turning the pages with one hand as he held Siegkat with the other, and was squinting his way through the table of contents in search of something that might help him blast a tunnel out of here without causing a cave-in, when the Crypt-Keeper came whistling down one of the passages.

“Ready to go, Your Grace?”

“Where _were_ you?” Leo demanded. The Crypt-Keeper looked genuinely stung.

“I went back to my office to get bikkies,” he said, holding up a floral-patterned biscuit tin. “I was just about to take my legally-required tea break when you asked to see Lord Xander’s grave.”

“Oh.” Leo sighed. “Gods. For a moment, I thought you’d left me for dead in here, or something.”

“Ha! Someone reads too many of them yellow-cover novels, by the looks of it. Now, if you’ll follow me…” The Crypt-Keeper ushered Leo out of the tomb, and locked it up again.

Leo kept Brynhildr in hand as they walked back; after that incident, he was already feeling like an idiot for having come down here without his retainers to begin with. The Hall of Remains would be the ideal place for Anankos to ambush him, but there were just as many mortals at court who wouldn’t be above paying the Crypt-Keeper off to quietly make the king disappear.

But the walk passed without incident, save for the mild annoyance of having to listen to the Crypt-Keeper munching noisily on biscuits the entire way back (he didn’t offer any to Leo), and Leo and Siegkat were returned to the (relative) light of the castle’s courtyard unscathed.

“And here we are!” The Crypt-Keeper waved Leo out of the hall, and bobbed his head in a quick bow. “It’s been an honour, Your Grace. I look forward to seeing you here again!”

“I hope you mean as a visitor,” Leo muttered, as the door to the Hall of Remains slammed shut again. Siegkat concurred with a disgruntled hiss. “Ah, well. Did you enjoy seeing Xander again?” he asked, stroking the cat’s ears. She leaned into his palm and began to purr loudly. Leo snorted. “Yeah, me too. C’mon, let’s head back; we were supposed to be out for an hour, and it’s been three.”

They made their way over the narrow bridge leading back to the keep. Leo kept his eyes studiously fixed on the middle distance, trying hard not to think about the moat beneath them, or the depth of the drop that led to it. This was made rather easier when he caught a flash of white coming along the bridge leading in from the city, a few metres away from the one he was crossing. As Kamui drew nearer, she spotted him as well, and started slightly; he threw her a sheepish wave, which she answered with an enthusiastic one.

“Hey, Leo!” she called. “Wait there, I have something to talk to you about! - actually, quite a lot of somethings - well, anyway, wait right there!”

She turned, and began running along the bridge. Leo kept moving alongside her, as briskly as he could without upsetting Siegkat in both senses of the word. The bridges at this level of the castle all led onto a single paved platform, encircling the keep; it was here that Kamui and Leo’s paths finally conjoined. Still Kamui was running towards him - for a moment, Leo thought she might be about to embrace him, but to his relief and disappointment, she stopped a few paces away from him.

“Hey,” she said again, more softly. She was still flushed and breathless from the running. Leo’s relief began to outweigh his disappointment: if he’d been holding her now, he’d have missed the chance to properly take in the spark in her eyes, the wind-tossed tangle of her curls, the radiance of her smile.

“Hey,” he returned, praying that the flush stealing along his own cheeks didn’t look as prominent as it felt.

Siegkat hissed at her.

“Hey, Siegkat,” Kamui chuckled, extending a hand for the cat to sniff; this she did with some distaste, but to her credit, she didn’t shrink away from Kamui this time. Kamui’s hand stayed frozen in the air for a moment; the thought was just beginning to form, in Leo’s head, of how easy it would be to incline his jaw forward just a little, and brush a kiss to her knuckles, when she withdrew it again.

Camilla’s laughter echoed behind Kamui.

“Why don’t we go in ahead of her,” she suggested to their retainers, as they reached the foot of the bridge themselves; they had taken rather longer than Kamui, being much more heavily laden with shopping-bags. “I get the feeling we’re intruding on a private conversation.”

“What - _Camilla!”_

Well, the flush was definitely prominent now. Camilla tittered into her sleeve at the sight of it, and even Mozu smiled knowingly to herself as she passed. Selena, meanwhile, ignored Leo entirely; she caught Kamui’s eye, and the two of them exchanged a firm nod.

Gods, just what were they expecting to happen?

Once Camilla and their retainers had gone inside, Kamui turned back to Leo. “Gods, I’m sorry about that,” she laughed shakily. “I don’t know what she was getting at there.”

As it happened, Leo knew damn well, and he knew that Kamui knew damn well too. But it was better not to broach that subject now.

“Um. You said you had something to discuss with me?” he pressed, instead. Kamui’s eyes lit up as she remembered.

“Ah! Yeah, I actually had a lot of things to go over with you. But first of all…” She unsheathed what was left of the Fire Emblem: a hilt, and a foot or so of the blade. Leo had never actually had the opportunity to study the sword properly before - the first and last time he’d seen it at such close quarters, the flat of the blade had been about to smack him in the head. He examined it carefully now; the blade was of a burnished gold, and inlaid with two red gems. The second thought to pass through Leo’s mind, as he looked at them, was that the stones glowed similarly to the stone on Brynhildr’s cover. The first thought was that they were the same colour as Kamui’s eyes.

“What, did you find some more information about it?” he asked, when he’d composed himself.

“I think so,” Kamui nodded. “I was talking to Selena about it, and she had an idea…”

She went on to explain her hypothesis: that the Fire Emblem had shattered because it was incomplete, and that in order to realise its full potential, it would have to fuse with two more of the divine weapons.

“… Except I don’t know where we’d find them,” she concluded.

Leo groaned, and buried his face in his hands. “Damn it…”

“Leo?” When he lifted his head again, she was looking at him, her eyes wide with a heartbreaking fusion of concern and panic. “I know it’s yet another thing we have to look for, but…”

“It’s not that,” he sighed. “I just came _back_ from the Hall of Remains.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning! I'm going out in a minute, so I'm afraid I don't have much to say here... BUT HERE U GO
> 
> \- There are still a few ships in this fic that I haven’t tagged, simply because this fic is so darn long that it doesn’t seem fair to spam the tags for these ships when it’s going to be at least half a year before I’m actually providing content for them. So yeah, I haven’t tagged Hinoka’s romance yet, but even if you haven’t seen me yell about my other Fates OTP on my Twitter every five seconds, I think I’ve dropped enough hints in the fic and the author’s notes that you can still probably guess who she’s eventually going to end up with, haha.
> 
> \- I should probably give credit where due, so: any of Kazama’s ravings that aren’t internet memes are shamelessly ripped off from our elf rogue in my first D&D campaign, who once made the mistake of drinking some tree sap which turned out to be Sokka’s cactus juice in all but name. Oh how we laughed.
> 
> \- Idk if this is common knowledge or not, but I think it’s cool so I’m going to tell you about it anyway. In Japanese, the honorific “-sama” is actually applied to the names of mountains in the same way we prefix them with the word “mount” (so Mt. Fuji is Fuji-sama, for example). Given the role mountains played in the construction of most pre-Sengoku forts and castles (which were built in the same way Hoshido’s Castle Shirasagi was), I just think that’s really lovely; it’s like giving thanks to the mountain that protects you every time you so much as mention it.
> 
> \- Another cool thing is that there actually is a real Castle Shirasagi in our world: it’s one of the various names given to Himeji Castle in the Hyōgo prefecture. The Shirasagi in Japan is a bit different to the one in Hoshido: the mound the central keep stands on isn’t quite so steep, and the castle complex is surrounded by a moat. The thing about the 84 gates is true, although obviously the 63 ruined ones weren’t destroyed by Nohrian invaders, haha.
> 
> \- So I’m guessing all those funky hand gestures mages do in these games hold some kind of importance to the spellcasting process (otherwise why would people like Miriel and Soren bother with them); my headcanon is that it works sort of like bending in the Avatarverse, and those gestures are how the mage channels the earth’s energy through their bodies and out onto the thing (or person) they want to affect with their magic. Or something.
> 
> \- I daresay Hinoka and Sakura’s “we’re back now/you’re back” exchange seems a little clunky and repetitive in English, but it was the most accurate translation I knew of for the standard “tadaima/okaerinasai” exchange. If I think of a better way of doing it, I’ll edit it, haha.
> 
> \- I don’t want to give away anything about Hinoka’s Vallite spear just yet, but I will say that it began life as one of the actual polearms from the game. I’m just not going to tell you which one, haha. It’ll be important later, but, like, MUCH later. As in, the very last few chapters. Yeah, sorry… practically everything in this fic is a Chekhov’s Gun, but you’re going to have to wait a while to see most of them fired, I’m afraid.
> 
> \- See, the trouble with making Nohr’s motivation for starting the war that they didn’t have enough food is that, well… I’m sorry, there’s just no way I’m going to believe that the country’s facing complete famine when they manage to feed a huge army, the royal family still get to live a typical decadent aristocratic lifestyle, and even Kamui gets to eat rich things like cake and whatnot on a regular basis. Their problems aren’t caused by a complete lack of resources; it’s caused by a maldistribution of those resources in favour of the rich. If that was rectified, they’d probably get by without having to invade other countries OR accept handouts from them, buuut Nohr is a country where the Divine Right of Kings literally means “the royal family is literally, provably descended from a god”, so that’s probably not going to happen any time soon, sadly.
> 
> \- The Hall of Remains scene is one I’ve actually been sitting on for almost three years now. I started it while I was in the middle of outlining this fic, back when I was still playing the game in Japanese; I’d originally intended to start the story in medias res, and have its events play out in a very different order, but that would have required so many exposition dumps (and, more importantly, cost us so many leokamu interactions) that in the end I just caved and moved the first chapter back by a lot, haha. Still, we got here eventually!


	16. And Winter Came

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo immediately regrets the manner in which he concludes a private conversation with Kamui.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so normally I’d be apologising for how A) short and B) ridiculously, embarrassingly self-indulgent this chapter is, but you know what? It’s my Christmas present to myself. So with that in mind, I have no trigger warnings, health and safety warnings, or apologies of any sort to preface it with: only the hope that the new year sees every one of you filled with inspiration and free of creative block; that most of the fics you write turn out the way you’d hoped they would, and the ones that don’t become happy accidents that you end up liking better than your original drafts; that you get to play some great games, read some lovely stories, and learn some neat things; and that you keep moving forward with whatever slowburn is going on in your own lives, whether it’s between you and another person, you and your dreams, or you and your sense of self-belief. Happy holidays!!! :D

 

> _“Let me open this letter by expressing my relief that your party returned from the expedition unscathed. I’m afraid that’s the only positive sentiment I can preface it with; I have never heard of a person’s being able to cast from their own soul without permanently weakening their own stores of magic. None of the books in the Academy’s library offer any information on what could be behind such a phenomenon, and my colleagues were at a loss as to how to explain it (I told them I was asking on behalf of my nephew, as I thought it imprudent to alert any of your subjects to what may prove to be the root of some new weakness in you; for your own sake, I would suggest you exercise the same measure of caution when investigating it yourself). The only thing I can suggest is that, if you have any plans to consult with the Rainbow Sage in person, you might ask him about it: if, as Lady Kamui said, it was he who forged the Divine Weapons, then enquiring into how it was that he managed to produce a tome that draws no energy from the earth or the caster will yield some answers which will probably prove useful to you, and definitely prove useful to the Academy._
> 
> _Sending this with my regrets that this was the only advice I could offer,_
> 
> _Nyx, Bursar of the Mage Academy_
> 
> _P.S. While I see little point in such things myself, I feel it only polite that, on behalf of the faculty of the Academy, I should wish you and Lady Kamui a suitably joyous solstice. We are all very grateful for the donation (however modest) you made to the school in the spirit of the holiday. Just think, child: if that particular sum were added to our regular budget, we could afford all the repairs we’ve been putting off, and perhaps even erect a small memorial to all the students who were brained by falling chunks of masonry in their valiant efforts to pursue their education in our crumbling classrooms.”_
> 
> \- A letter from Professor Nyx to King Leo, dated December 10th, 1319. The Mage Academy’s records yield no evidence that any students were in fact killed by falling masonry, nor even that the building was in such drastic disrepair that such an event was likely to happen; however, Nyx makes frequent references to the dilapidated state of the school in her letters to the king, and his own writings suggest that this may merely be some sort of inside joke between them.
> 
> If records from the winter of 1319 are reliable, then despite the Academy teaching staff’s wishes, it can be surmised that King Leo did not, in fact, have a joyous solstice that year. He did not have a joyous solstice _at all_.

 

The last days of autumn passed through Windmire in a merry mazurka of dancing snow, and giggling candles, and tiny fingers of frost waving through the windows. Everywhere you looked, the city was awhirl with activity; from the preparations at court for the solstice night’s festivities, to the merchants in the city’s streets peddling salted pork and roasted nuts and dried fruits, to the more bitter work, in the underground, of storing what little wheat the year’s harvest had yielded. At all levels of the feudal system, the people applied themselves to their travails with twice their usual diligence, spurred on by the promise of the feast day that marked the start of another steady march towards spring.

Unfortunately, the king presiding over all this business had been a good deal less productive himself; although certainly not for want of trying. Reforming a country’s entire economic system was hardly something that could be done overnight, but with his efforts torn between assuaging the concerns of those more conservative lords in parliament, and meeting the needs of, well, everyone else, Leo had found it to be a more gradual process even than he’d expected. The groundwork for each new policy would have to be laid by another, less radical one, to clear the path for what he meant to do without those who would be opposed to it catching on too quick; that much he’d always understood as a simple reality of what government entailed. What he hadn’t been prepared for, though, was the sheer number of people who would misinterpret his decrees as the foundations of some other, completely different policy, one he’d never dream of implementing, and decry them accordingly. Was there anything in the world more galling than having one’s plans come under fire before one had even had the chance to explain what they actually were?

But if the pace of Leo’s progress through parliament was glacial, then progress towards his other, more pressing mission had reached a complete standstill. He and Kamui spent every free hour they could get in his study, puzzling over every shred of information they could find that might explain how to go about reforging the Fire Emblem; but so far, nothing had come of their efforts.

“And you really can’t think of any specifics that might have prompted the fusion in each case?” asked Leo, one afternoon, for what had to be the fifth or sixth time. Kamui shook her head.

“I’m sorry, no. Like I said, the first time it happened, the Sage used his powers to combine my Yato with Takumi’s bow. And then, the second time, it just sort of happened on its own, right before the final battle.” She smiled wryly at that. “Which is some pretty amazing dramatic timing, when you think about it.”

“It is rather Odinesque, isn’t it?” Leo hissed a quick incantation at the fire, prodding the flames into a slightly higher blaze. The solstice was little over a week away now, an arrival heralded by a persistent nip in the air, which no amount of socks or sweaters could armour them against; as such, the two of them spent most of their research sessions sitting hunched over Leo’s fireplace, cocooned in several layers of blankets, with a pot of tea standing by at all times. “I take it you still haven’t heard back from the Sage yet?”

“Not yet.” Well, that was troubling; and if the furrow of Kamui’s brow was anything to go by, she thought so too. But when her gaze lifted to meet Leo’s again, the corners of her mouth perked up into a hopeful half-smile. “Our raven must’ve gotten lost, or something. I’ll write to him again later.”

It would probably never stop astounding Leo that this was how Kamui reacted when something worrisome happened; that her first instinct was to address whatever concerns he might have, rather than expressing her own, even though they were scribbled all over her face. He was left with the vague feeling that he ought to try to soothe her somehow, but realistically, there wasn’t anything to be said. Kamui had expected the Sage’s response to arrive a week after her letter was sent, but it was obvious that she’d based that on her correspondence with Felicia: most letters coming to and from Dia took three days at most. As it was, the week had been and gone; if the Sage had gone this long without responding, then either something _had_ happened to the raven, or something had happened to _him_. But that was probably not what Kamui needed to hear.

In the end, Leo opted to forgo words, in favour of donating one of his blankets. When he unfurled it from his own shoulders and draped it carefully over hers, Kamui whipped her head around, blinking at him like a frightened rabbit. For a moment, he was afraid that he might have overstepped; but then her face softened into a weary smile, and she drew the blanket more tightly around herself.

“What about Nyx?” she asked, then. “Has she gotten back to you?”

Leo swallowed. He wasn’t about to tell Kamui that technically, the issue he’d written to Nyx about was one that he’d since got to the root of on his own; it didn’t take a mind like Leo’s to guess how Kamui would take the news that he had lost the only proof of his parentage, and his claim to the throne, by using that spell. No, it was easier, far easier, to feign ignorance of the spell’s impact, than to watch her try to shoulder the blame for that, on top of everything else.

“I did get a note from her on Monday, now that you mention it. Hold on, I’ll see if I can…”

The letter didn’t take long to find; Leo had been using it as one of many impromptu bookmarks in _The Book of Dusk_ , signposting the passage where Siegfried was given his sword by the Rainbow Dragon. Leo stuck a finger between the pages, to hold his place until Kamui had finished with it. Watching her read was almost as entertaining as the act of reading itself: she was a very expressive reader, and it was easy to tell which part of the letter she’d reached by the widening of her eyes, or the twitches tugging at her brow, or the smile playing at the corners of her mouth. When she neared the end, she almost dropped the paper with a triumphant little cry.

“Why didn’t _we_ think of that?” she laughed.

“Of what?”

“Going to see the Sage ourselves. It would solve so many of our problems at once: we could get the Yato reforged, you could see if there’s anything he can tell you about your magic, and I can make sure he’s okay. And he’d probably have some idea of what to do about… well, _that_ whole business,” she added, nodding over to Leo’s desk. More specifically, to the priceless royal claymore moonlighting as the world’s largest paperweight on top of it.

“Well, that’d make one of us,” said Leo ruefully. Kamui chuckled, as she downed the last of her tea in an inelegant but charming quaffing motion; Leo moved to pour her another cup at the same moment she was reaching for the pot herself. His hand shot back before his fingers could do more than brush hers, but she grimaced, and looked askance, cradling her hand as if it was the side of the teapot she had touched. One could hardly blame her for that: gods, how many times had that happened this past month? Every time, it had been a genuine accident, but Leo was quite sure that Kamui must be starting to suspect that it was deliberate.

“Um, anyway! Have you had any luck with Siegfried today, speaking of?” she asked, in a tremulous voice almost a full octave higher than it should have been.

Leo sighed, and stumbled to his feet, taking his nest of blankets with him as a very heavy impromptu mantle. “I suppose I should, now that you mention it.” Not that it was likely to be any different today than it had been on any of the other nine days he’d spent studying the sword, but whenever he’d pointed this out to Kamui, she’d only retorted that if he achieved nothing with perseverance alone, he’d achieve still less with idleness.

Well. Her exact words had been, “Well, you’ll definitely not get anywhere with that attitude, you big grump.”

Leo wove a winding trail through the small maze of books and papers they had left strewn about the floor, and made his way back to his desk, where Siegfried lay waiting. The sword was another reason Leo and Kamui had moved their work to the hearthrug: the desk was the only free space in Leo’s study large enough to accommodate it, and it took up the entire surface.

Apprehension gripped Leo, even as he gripped the hilt. Even in the days before it had come to serve as the instrument of his brother’s last, greatest regret, and as the heralding pipe of the darkest hour their family would ever face, there had always been something rather unsettling about Siegfried. The sword was wrought of five and a half feet of unbreakable steel, supposedly forged in dragonfire, and had never seen a whetstone in eight hundred years: its edge was a glowing nimbus of crimson flame, which ran the length of the blade and melted cleanly through anything it touched before the metal itself could bite into it. Normally, Leo would have seen such a weapon as the most valuable asset the Nohrian army had - and so he had seen it, for as long as it remained in Xander’s hand - but there had always been a part of him that wondered what would befall humanity if a day should come when it passed down the royal line into the hands of a less stable king; a part of him that shuddered over accounts of the uses some of their forebears had put the blade to. Now, with the knowledge of what it was capable of, even in the hands of a man as honourable as his brother had been…

But Siegfried was in _his_ hands now, and only until he’d reaped its power for the Fire Emblem; once that was done, he’d return it to the Hall of Remains, to the grave of its first deserving wielder since the one who had lent his name to it. Leo shook the thought from his head, and wrapped his left hand around the scabbard, holding it steady as he pulled hard with his right.

As usual, nothing happened.

He tried it again, and again, shifting his grip to different angles, yanking first with one hand, and then with both; but the sword simply refused to be drawn. It was almost as if there _was_ no blade, and the hilt and scabbard existed as a single object, like the tiny wooden sword that armed the nutcracker Cassita had given to Leo and Elise as a solstice present when they were small (a sword which they had promptly snapped in two while trying to remove it from his belt, not having realised that it couldn’t come out of its brightly-painted sheath).

“Still no luck?” Kamui had risen from the hearthrug herself, and was picking her way over to him; where Leo had stepped around the mess on the floor, she sprang over it in a series of sprightly little hops and skips, so like her footwork on the battleground. Leo shook his head; half in answer to her question, and half to toss aside the vague observation of how long and lithe her legs looked in her knit leggings.

“Still nothing. I guess the sword only allows itself to be drawn by people like Xander.” Or by people who can use Dragon Veins, he mentally added; but surely if that was the case, then he wouldn’t have been able to use Brynhildr anymore either.

“Or maybe it just thinks having two divine weapons on your belt at once is greedy,” Kamui suggested, grinning that unbearable grin again.

“One is the king; one will be as greedy as one wants,” Leo retorted, addressing the obstinate claymore. Kamui’s chirping laugh was the most pleasant distraction, but he managed to wrestle his attention away from it and back to the task at hand. “Regardless, if we can’t so much as unsheathe it, I’m at a bit of a loss as to how we’re meant to use it.”

“It’s fine. We’ll just ask the Sage about it when we see him,” said Kamui brightly. “Nobody’s going to have a better idea of what's wrong with the sword than the guy who made it, right?”

Leo considered this from under a dubious eyebrow. “About that. Can we really justify leaving the capital for such a long trip? Right before the solstice, at that: I’d probably come back to fifty editorials in _The Pungent Bulb_ making me out to be some sort of heathen killjoy.”

“I can go by myself, if that’s easier.” Kamui shrugged. Leo shook his head.

“Oh no you don’t. The only path from Windmire to Notre Sagesse on foot cuts straight through the Woods of the Forlorn,” he pointed out. “I don’t fancy having to tell King Ryouma that you went missing, and are presumed dead, after I sent you on an errand I didn't want to do myself.”

“Tell me again where it was that we had our battle?” Kamui remarked sweetly. “The one where I kind of kicked your butt?”

Leo made an indelicate little sound. “Point taken; although I don’t know if I’d phrase it quite like that. As I recall, there wasn’t any _kind of_ about it.”

Kamui cringed. “Gods, was I really that bad?”

“You were that good.” As much as the memory of being so thoroughly clobbered could hardly be called a pleasant one, Leo found himself smiling at it regardless, simply for what it represented: that Kamui had grown strong enough to hold her own even when the terrain of the battleground put her at a disadvantage, and pragmatic enough to defend herself even against opponents she had no honest wish to raise her blade against. That she had grown past being the princess locked in the tower, and nobody could ever thus imprison her again.

That he had fallen in love with an indestructible goddess.

It was only when Kamui returned his smile, slightly quizzically, that Leo realised exactly how long he’d been looking at her. The dreamy haze cleared from his head in one freezing, burning rush; he could feel his ears exploding with colour as he cleared his throat, and continued in his most businesslike tone. “I’m still coming with you, though. I’ve been meaning to make the pilgrimage to Notre Sagesse for a while anyway.”

Come to think of it, Kamui had always refused to tell him what it was that the Rainbow Sage imparted to those who came to him. All Leo knew was that it was the power that had made Father and King Sumeragi such revered kings, and Xander so proud and puissant; it was the power that Kamui had used to end a war. With that in mind, perhaps it was something that was tied directly into one’s leadership skills - the ability to inspire confidence in others, or to hold to a steadier confidence in themselves.

Or perhaps it had to do with their mastery of the Dragon Veins.

Leo’s heart leapt at the thought, and for once in his life, it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. Suppose the power the Sage had bestowed upon Kamui - upon Xander, upon Father - had been a mouthful of his own blood? If Leo did go his ways to Notre Sagesse, could the dragon restore what he had lost? Gods, Nyx might be more right about the usefulness of the Sage’s counsel than she knew.

“If you’re sure you can get away with being gone that long. It’d take us a good six days to get there and back, probably.” Even as she said this, Kamui bit her lip and looked askance; the prospect of making such a long journey with such a repellent suitor was weighing on her mind already.

“Three days,” said Leo, half as a correction and half as an assurance. “The quickest road to Dia takes us through Macarath. If there’s anywhere in the Nohrian commonwealth that we’re likely to find a seller who deals in warp books, it’s there.”

That, at least, seemed to assuage Kamui’s concerns a little; she lifted her eyes back to his again, her lips quirking into a nervous smile. When she spoke, it was in a far more upbeat tone. “Gods, I’d forgotten about that! Okay, then in that case you _have_ to come along; I’d never know what to look for.”

“You almost sound excited,” Leo observed.

“I guess I am, at that,” she admitted. “I mean - mostly I do want to make sure the Sage is okay. And we’ll be able to cross a bunch of things off our to-do list in one outing, and it’ll be a load off my mind when we’ve got all that done. But…” Here her gaze fell to her feet again, but this time her nervous smile melted into a warm one. “Do you… remember when we were little, and you used to tell me about these places? The seaside at Dia, Macarath Palace, the Woods of the Forlorn…” Her finger absently traced a line running down the surface of Leo’s desk, where Siegkat had brazenly tried to use it as a scratching-post. “You always described them to me so vividly. Hearing you talk about them, it was so easy to imagine that we were actually there. But you also always said that you’d take me to visit them for real one day, to see them with my own eyes. And… now I’m finally getting to.”

“But you’ve seen them already,” Leo pointed out.

“Yes, but not with -” Kamui began; but then she cut herself off, and, apparently thinking better of finishing her sentence, amended it to: “but not during peacetime.”

“Kamui…” Leo’s stomach twisted as he remembered those days in the fortress; the voracious spark in Kamui’s eyes, the bobbing of her head in eager, impatient nods, as she had pressed him for more and more details on even the most mundane parts of his trips outside the city. He had always sworn, in those days, that he would take her to see it all for herself when she was free to leave - the gardens of Macarath Palace, the moonlit falls at the edge of the woods where the Merewif surged towards the sea, even (when he was in an especially self-sacrificing mood) the shore itself.

He had broken that oath when she set herself free, and all she had seen of those places was one endless battleground. But he would hold fast to it now.

A silence had descended over them; Kamui broke it with an apologetic chuckle.

“Er, sorry to get all sombre on you there. I’ll go tell Jakob and Mozu to start packing; they’ll worry themselves sick if I leave without them again. And I guess it’d be a bad idea to leave Gunter unattended, so we should make some sort of arrangement for him…”

There she went again. Kamui never could stay subdued for long; not even when recalling the darkest times in her life, it seemed.

“What did any of us ever do to deserve you?” Leo muttered aloud, unthinkingly. He hadn’t expected Kamui to hear it, but her chattered itinerary trailed off, as she paused to regard him through eyes wide with unmistakable apprehension.

“Oh, I dread to think,” she riposted with a self-deprecating laugh, but this one was a little too high to be genuine. Leo would have been willing - grateful even - to banter back, and salvage the conversation with humour as usual; but then she pressed him, in a voice that was trying to be light, but it was outlined by a barely-repressed quaver. “What’s brought this on?”

“Well - for a start, you’re probably the only person I’ve met who would recall spending fifteen years under house arrest, and then apologise for being too sombre.” Leo was stepping to a careful dance here; it was vital that his head kept moving as fast as his mouth. They had just about managed to move past the uncomfortable knowledge of his love for her, and back to their old dynamic, but one wrong word here could be the undoing of that work and the complete ruination of their friendship. “You always were far too apt to understate your own feelings, for the sake of sparing other people’s. It’s a habit I should probably be lecturing you for, but… gods, how are you so good?”

Kamui’s mouth fell slightly open at that. For a stricken moment, Leo supposed that she had seized upon the frightened assumption that this conversation was about to take a turn for the unpalatable; he was scrambling to form the words to apologise, and to assure her that he was working to overcome his perversions, when she sighed and shook her head.

“By having a… a brother who makes me sound a lot better than I am,” she said simply.

Leo raised an eyebrow at that: of all the words she’d said, the only one he had expected to hear was _brother_ , and even that had been a rare moment of optimism on his part. “Kamui, if this is about the war -”

“It’s not. Well, not _just_ about the war, anyway.” Her hands were both clasped over her chest, pulling the fabric of her tunic into an agitated twist. “Leo, do you remember that conversation we had in Va-”

“ _Kamui!_ ”

“Sorry!” she cringed. “I mean, under that old tree? After I rescued you from the rabbit?”

“It was the sort of incident that does tend to stick in the memory, yes.” For a multitude of reasons.

“Okay. So you said then that you experience a similar sort of… anxiety, I think was the word we settled on, to mine.” She looked up at him now; her head was tilted to the side again, but the look in her eyes this time was less questioning and more imploring. “You said it might be a symptom of draconic degeneration.”

“Yes, I remember,” Leo nodded; then bowed his head in a deeper nod, as comprehension began to seep in. “So… you avoid talking about your negative emotions because you’re worried that dwelling on them will make your destructive urges worse?”

“That’s exactly it, yes,” said Kamui gratefully. “I mean - obviously I don’t want to bring anyone else’s mood down with mine either. That did used to be the only reason for it, and it is still a major one. But ever since the war… it’s not just been about other people’s feelings anymore. It’s about their physical safety, as well.”

Pity rent at Leo. He lifted a hand to her shoulder; but, upon seeing the uneasy way she eyed it, folded it away behind his back again.

“Kamui, that’s understandable,” he said, instead, “but when I talked about exercising self-control, I wasn’t suggesting complete repression.” (Not in her case, anyway.) “Mentioning your childhood in passing, to someone who was there to witness it, isn’t going to spontaneously turn you into some approximation of the wyrm.”

He’d meant it as a flippant joke, but Kamui flinched at that; Leo’s stomach gave a lurch when she mumbled, in a voice thick with restrained emotion, “It might, actually.”

Leo blinked at her. “Er… pardon?”

But Kamui wasn’t given the chance to elaborate, before the tension in the air was shattered (along with Leo’s nerves) by an abrupt knocking at the door.

“You should probably get that,” Kamui sighed; but, as Leo moved past her towards the door, she caught his hand. Her features were once again radiantly illuminated by their usual smile, with only the faintest flicker in her pupils to betray the unease that lay beneath the surface. “And… forget I said anything, okay? The only point I ever meant to make was that I’m excited to go on this trip.” She swallowed, then; it was probably a hangover of her earlier agitation, but a light flush glowed in her cheeks and the tips of her ears. He could feel her fingers trembling in his as she added, “… With you.”

Nothing made Leo less inclined to forget a conversation than being told he ought to, but for her sake he’d avoid pressing the issue any further - today, at least. He returned her smile with one that he hoped didn’t look as foolish as it felt, and bowed his head in a conceding nod. “As you wish. I’ll be looking forward to it, as well.”

Kamui’s hand was still laced into his. In a fit of mental alienation, Leo lifted it, swivelling his own hand to clasp her fingers lightly, and brought her knuckles briefly to his lips. It was a courtly brush of a kiss, of the sort he’d pressed to Father’s ring when he was knighted, and into the gloves of any number of elderly dowager-duchesses as a greeting; but regret speared him the second he’d done it. He didn’t dare meet Kamui’s gaze as he dropped her hand, and went to answer the door.

And was greeted by the empty air.

Leo stuck his head out into the hall, checking to see if they’d moved on; but the corridor was deserted on both sides.

“Uncle Leo?”

Leo started, and looked down; Shigure stood primly in front of him, cradling a folded-up bundle of papers and staring up at him like a wounded hound.

“You didn’t come to the door for about a hundred years,” the little boy chided, in a gently exasperated tone that would have sounded more appropriate coming from one of Leo’s old tutors than from a four-year-old child.

“Ah, my apologies, Shigure,” said Leo, with a perfectly straight face. He cast a careful eye over his shoulder, giving the floor of his study a quick comb for any objects that shouldn’t be left within a child’s reach; finding nothing more dangerous than the fire-irons, he waved the boy in. “Your aunt and I were busy discussing an expedition we’re arranging.”

Shigure’s face crumpled further at that. “You’re going away again?”

“Not for long,” Kamui assured him. As he approached, she dropped to her knees to meet him at his eye level, and ran a soothing hand over his hair; her clean hand, not the one Leo had kissed. “And hey, well done for knowing what _expedition_ means!”

“Well, it was in _The Dark Dragon and the Sword of Light_. - but why are you leaving?”

“We’re, ah…” Kamui pinched her lower lip between the tip of her thumb and the knuckles of her first two fingers, as she struggled to think up a convincing lie. She didn’t seem to have noticed that she was pressing her mouth to the precise spot where Leo had laid his, mere moments earlier; and he certainly knew better than to point it out. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to ruminate over it before a spark of inspiration flared up in her eyes. “We’re going to pick up your solstice present.”

Well, that had won them their nephew’s forgiveness, if the way Shigure’s eyes lit up was anything to go by. “I get a present?”

Kamui nodded; she was grinning now. “Mhm. I’m afraid we’ll be out of town for a few days, but that’s because none of the shops in Windmire sell warp books.”

Shigure cocked his head to the side. “What’s a warp book?”

“It’s a spell tome that can transport you to places that are too far away to reach on foot,” Leo explained. Shigure’s mouth fell open in a wide O.

“I could go _anywhere_?” he asked, in an awed whisper. “Even back to Hoshido?”

Kamui caught Leo’s eye in an apprehensive unspoken question; it occurred to him that he’d never actually taught her the finer points of how the warp spell worked, or what its limitations were. Fortunately, this time, at least, the explanation he had to give was a welcome one.

“Shigure,” he said, not even bothering to repress his grin, “if you had a warp book, you could visit your aunts and uncles in Hoshido every weekend, without it having any sort of negative impact on your studies.”

Shigure gaped at him; then, for what was only the second time since Leo had met him, his face split into a smile. Like most of his expressions and mannerisms, Shigure’s smile reminded Leo very much of Kamui’s, but not as it was now: rather than a study in miniature of Kamui’s dazzling grin, this was a timid little line of a smile, so very like the one Kamui had used to greet Leo with, during those earliest days in the fortress, before he had known her well enough to pick up the knack for drawing out her true smile.

“So as she says, we’ll be gone for a few days,” Leo concluded. “Think you can hold the fort until we get back?”

Shigure nodded emphatically. “Wait till I tell Father. We can go and see Uncle Saizou and Asugi back home, and -”

“Ah, hold on.” Leo halted these musings with a hastily raised finger. “If we buy you a warp book, you have to promise that you’ll only use it at times when I or Kamui can accompany you. It’s quite a complicated spell, and if you get it wrong, the results can be a bit… well, nightmarish.”

More to the point, if Leo couldn’t keep track of where Shigure was, then the boy may as well warp himself directly into Anankos’s mouth. But he accepted the reasoning Leo gave well enough.

“Yes, uncle.”

“Good boy,” said Kamui, giving his head a light pat. “Anyway, did you just come here to say hi, or do you need our help with something?”

“Um. If you’re not too busy… could we go to the bird room again?” Shigure held out his little wad of papers. It was another of his raggedy letters, once again scattering a light snowfall of chalk dust; this time, though, the outermost sheet of parchment was carefully, but rather shakily, inscribed with the words “工おじさん、誕生日おめでとうございます”.

“Is it someone’s birthday?” Leo’s grasp of written Hoshidan wasn’t yet as fluent as he’d have liked, even when it wasn't written in a child's hand, but _happy birthday uncle_ was fairly rudimentary. Kamui nodded.

“Ah - yes, Takumi’s birthday is tomorrow. Well remembered, Shigure.” She began to unfold the papers. “Is it okay if we have a look?”

Shigure nodded, a little nervously. The page shedding the chalk dust proved to be a drawing of what Leo initially took to be an open sky, until he saw that there were two stick figures floating in the middle of it. One of them appeared to be standing on the other one’s head.

“Avant-garde,” he remarked drily.

“Is this another of your flying pictures?” asked Kamui.

Shigure nodded, and circled behind them to point out the finer details of the piece. “This is me,” he said, gently tapping the figure who stood on top of the other one. “And I’m riding on my pegasus.”

“And who’s this other person here?” asked Leo.

“Uncle Takumi,” said Shigure blithely.

“Ah.” Leo nodded. “So he’s riding on the pegasus with you?”

“No, _he’s_ -”

“It’s a wonderful drawing!” Kamui interrupted, rather hastily. “Uncle Takumi’s going to love it. Do you want to take it to the aviary now?”

Shigure nodded, and took the hand that she offered him when she stood up. Again, it was the hand Leo had kissed, but this time she cast a troubled glance over it as she held it out, as if she hoped that using it for the more wholesome purpose of guiding their nephew would make it easier to forget what had happened.

“I’ll be back to get everything sorted for the trip once I’ve done this,” she said, without looking round; her voice was slightly edged with some inscrutable emotion (disgust? Dread? Or homesickness?).

But Shigure halted, and cast a crestfallen look back at Leo. “Isn’t Uncle Leo coming?”

“I - no, I’ve too much work still to do.” Besides, the last time we took your aunt to the aviary, I almost proposed to her, Leo mentally added.

The disappointment on the little boy’s face deepened. For once, Leo was put more in mind of Elise than Kamui; he half expected his nephew to pout and go into a huff, as his sister would have done, but Shigure only bowed his head in a resigned silence.

Leo sighed. “We can’t take too long up there, okay?”

Shigure’s mouth pressed into that shaky smile again, as he held out his free hand to his uncle. Leo turned to mouth an apology at Kamui, but she had already put her we’re-a-happy-family face back on, and answered his glance with a smile that didn’t even look particularly forced. She should have been an actress, Leo mused.

“Why were you so set on my accompanying you, anyway?” he asked. Kamui had warned him in her letters that Shigure took to people slowly, and for the first week of his stay, the boy had never seemed quite at ease around Leo, except when Kamui or Lord Suzukaze was present. As much as his only motive for bringing the child here was to safeguard him from Anankos’s machinations, the thought that his nephew might be growing fond of him was admittedly rather gratifying.

Which was why it was more than a little disappointing when Shigure blithely replied: “So you could give me more dragon books to read.”

Kamui gave a little snort of repressed laughter, which Leo very pointedly chose to ignore.

“That’s fair,” he said wryly. “Well, there is a second book about Marth and Caeda by the same author, for a start.”

“ _Heroes of Light and Shadow_? That’s a good one. And _Shadows of Valentia_ , too,” Kamui nodded. In their youth, she and Leo had just about memorised the entire trilogy between them, as he recalled; sometimes Gunter would put them to reciting it aloud for him, if he caught them in a wicked mood, to keep them occupied until they felt like behaving themselves again. “Although I don’t know if they’re really Shigure’s thing,” she mused ruefully.

“Good point.” Gods, it was quite unbelievable that Leo’d had to be reminded about the love scenes in those books: his earliest dreams of Kamui, when they still stood at the brink of adolescence, had seen them embracing on the balcony at Zofia Castle, in a perfect reenactment of the book’s intricately-etched illumination depicting the brief reunion of Alm and Celica. But with hindsight, perhaps it was a good sign that he’d forgotten until now; it did not do to dwell on dreams of that sort.

Leo shook the memory from his head, and turned his attentions back to Shigure. “Dragon books, let me think… _The Blazing Sword_ is a classic, but there’s a couple of romantic subplots in that one as well…”

“And it’s for adults,” Kamui pointed out.

“No book is _for adults_ ,” Leo scoffed. "Some people just read at a more advanced level than others.”

Kamui arched a roguish eyebrow at him. “Oh? Would you recommend _Genealogy of the Holy War_ to him, then?”

An involuntary strangled sound welled in the back of Leo’s throat, as he was rudely reminded of yet more confused literary fantasies; he really hadn’t been very original at fourteen, now that he thought on it. “Point taken.”

“What’s _Genealogy of the Holy War_?” Shigure enquired innocently.

Oh, bugger.

“It’s definitely not a book you’d enjoy,” said Leo quickly.

“It has _lots_ of kissing in it,” Kamui clarified, prompting a repulsed squeak from Shigure. 

Well, Leo mused with a quiet snicker, that was one way to describe Arvis’s crimes… wait, was that why Kamui had brought that book up as an example? Had she meant it as a deliberate act of passive-aggression? With a heave of anxiety, he supposed she must have done; sure enough, when he glanced at Kamui again, she was staring studiously at the middle distance, blinkered to avoid meeting his eye.

Still, it was rather difficult to stay completely miserable in Shigure’s company. Not only because his conversation was quite entertaining to listen to (he had moved on from literary recommendations, and was now explaining the differences in the wing structures of birds, pegasi and wyverns, and how this affected their flight), but also simply because he was _their_ nephew. While that little boy walked along, hand-in-hand with the two of them, it was almost possible to pretend that they were still a family; to forget that anything had ever changed that. Kamui had never been a traitor. Leo had never been a degenerate. From Shigure’s perspective, they were simply his mother’s brother and sister, taking him on a brief excursion, both of them as platonically fond of each other as they were of him. It was a delusion that Leo would devote his life to making a reality, if he had to: he could never be Alm or Sigurd anywhere outside his own mind, but he was damned if he was going to let himself appear anything like Arvis to Kamui again.

“It’s too bad I don’t have my warp book now,” Shigure mused. “If I did, I could’ve just given Uncle Takumi his drawing myself, instead of getting a bird to do it.”

“You’ll have it for next year,” Kamui soothed. She bent over him with a conspiratorial grin, then. “And think how surprised they’ll all be when we appear in front of them on the solstice!”

An idea lit Shigure’s face again at that. “Wait. If I can go back whenever I want… I’ll still be able to see you, right? Even after you go home?”

“If Uncle Leo doesn’t mind bringing you,” Kamui nodded.

“If Aunt Kamui doesn’t mind my tagging along with you,” Leo countered, with a self-deprecating snort. He’d mostly meant it as a joke (“mostly” being a word which here means “partly”), but his companions regarded him with identical expressions of concerned bewilderment.

“Leo, why would I mind that?” Kamui’s voice shook with warm laughter, but the pity that lay behind the spark of merriment in her eyes was quite difficult to miss. Gods, that she was even capable of pitying him, when she knew damn well what he’d meant… again, it made Leo wonder what he’d ever done to deserve her presence in his life.

But he had been skating on thin enough ice the first time he'd voiced  _that_ thought. No, this time he would do far better to fall back on his usual brand of ribbing; he'd once remarked that sometimes laughter was the only way to keep from screaming, but in this case it was probably the only way to keep _her_ from screaming.

“Well, there you have it, Shigure,” he said sweetly, to that end. “Your aunt has given us permission to come pester her at six o’clock every morning.”

“If you like getting hit in the face with a pillow, then sure,” Kamui riposted, without missing a beat. Her grin was back again, thank gods.

Shigure blinked up at her apprehensively. “Please don’t…”

“Oh - no, I didn’t mean it!” she assured him hastily, even through her laughter. “I was kidding, it’s okay…”

Of course, the issue of how Leo felt about her would have to be addressed directly at some point. They were almost halfway through December now; Kamui would be going back to Hoshido in a month, and opportunities to speak privately with her would be a good deal fewer and farther between. If he left it too late, there was every chance that she would, quite rightly, refuse to see him for the remainder of her stay, and they would part forever on the sourest terms. No, if he meant for that conversation to leave open the chance for a reconciliation, then it was a conversation they’d have to have fairly soon.

Even so, it was hardly a prospect Leo relished, and he was inclined to put it off as long as he could get away with. At the very least, it could wait until after they’d been to see the Sage, he told himself.

These perseverations were interrupted by a tugging at Leo’s hand.

“Oh, though. Can you use a warp book to fly up into the sky?”

“Technically, I suppose it could be done,” Leo nodded. “I wouldn’t advise it, though: it’s a one-way trip.”

Shigure frowned slightly. “What does that mean?”

“It means your uncle makes some very sick jokes sometimes,” Kamui chuckled. Leo could worry later about what else he said, or did, or thought, that could be considered sick; for now, he told himself firmly, he was to commit the sound of Kamui’s laugh to memory, to carry with him if he should never hear it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I'm afraid I don't have much else to say here besides... thank you all so, so much for your support! This year's been a wild ride from start to finish, but the one thing I'd expected least was for this fic to get anything like as positive a reception as it's had. Thank you so much for that; I'll keep trying my very hardest for you in 2019 too! :D
> 
> \- My very favourite mazurka (because surely everyone has a favourite mazurka?) is the one Prokofiev wrote for Cinderella. And I’m not just saying that because it’s been stuck in my head since this year’s ballet season started.
> 
> \- I’ve seen other writers get a lot of flak for including Christmas and similar winter festivals in their fics, and… frankly, that’s incredibly unjust. Partly because fanfics are written for fun, not as a serious work-for-hire continuation of the source material, but more importantly because of COURSE Nohr would have a holiday like that; it’s the most basic worldbuilding, and I’ll tell you for why. If you look at pre-medieval history, even before the spread of Christianity, almost every northern European country had some sort of festival that took place on or around the winter solstice. Not because of any reasons that would be unique to any one religion, but just because, well… winters in this part of the world are bleak. It’s cold. It’s damp. I wrote this author’s note at four o’clock in the afternoon in the first week of December, and it was already pitch dark. In seasons like this, people need to have something to look forward to in order to avoid feeling totally dismal until spring comes again. And since it gets even colder and darker in Nohr than it does here… yeah, there’s just no way they wouldn’t be breaking out the mead and yule-logs around late December, haha.
> 
> \- My sincerest apologies for everything political in this fic: my understanding of how politics works in any era, from Leo’s to ours, is pretty much limited to “classism and war bad, equality and intellectualism good, raise a glass to freedom, do you hear the people sing?”, so I’ve had to kind of avoid talking about it too much, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Please feel free to correct me on anything I get factually wrong; gods know it’s information I need, haha.
> 
> \- Fun fact, December 10th, 1319 actually was a Monday. This was one of those things I researched, ostensibly in the name of accuracy, but actually in the name of procrastination. Another fun fact, that happens A LOT when I’m writing… still, at least I’m wasting my time on something educational, right…?
> 
> \- “Quaffing” is defined by Pterry as being “like drinking, but you spill more.” The term is believed to have originated in the 16th century, but it was just too good a word not to use. Granted, given how anachronistic the game itself is I shouldn’t really be worrying about period-accuracy, especially since I was the one who chose what year to set this fic in, but this is another of those educational procrastinations, haha.
> 
> \- I consider the Cipher cards an in-universe game, roughly equivalent to baseball cards in our world, rather than an accurate depiction of anything that happens in canon. This is mainly because most of the art for the female characters is just too ridiculously male-gazey to ever take seriously, but also because… I’m sorry, where would a skinny pretty-boy like Leo ever find the upper body strength to wield Siegfried? Seriously, that thing’s gigantic. Getting it out of the Hall of Remains probably involved him and Kamui being like “to me, to you” the entire way back through the labyrinth.
> 
> \- Look at Leo, assuming you get something actually useful when you meet the Rainbow Sage and not just a “but what if the true power was the levelgrinding you did along the way?” cop-out. He really thinks this is going to fix his problem. It’s adorable. *stares into the camera like I’m on the hit TV show The Office*
> 
> \- Look, I’m not saying Leo is especially popular with elderly dowager-duchesses, but that’s exactly what I’m saying. Unrelated, Fantasia in E Minor is really good and you should read it.
> 
> \- There are like a zillion different spellings for Takumi’s name, but the kanji I went with means “skilful”, since that one seemed to fit him (and his stat growths!) best. If you were curious, the kanji I used for Hinoka’s name back in chapter 12 translate to “fire god”.


	17. Fabrics and Fabrications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Takumi has a fairly uneventful birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: another reference to laughing caps (I’m sorry, I swear to all the gods this is the last one); an actual incidence of one of the characters themselves getting triggered.  
> Also, writing a scene that takes place on Takumi’s birthday when we’re already starting the new year feels even weirder than writing Leo’s late-November coronation in June did. But it would have been weirder still to write a fic set in the winter and pass over Takumi’s birthday entirely; besides, any day is a good day to be celebrating Takumi’s birth, let’s be honest.  
> Also-also, I was sick with a parade of various minor ailments in succession almost the entire time I was writing this, so apologies in advance for any mistakes, clumsy wording, or general stupidity, haha… aren’t winter bugs just the worst ;;;

 

 

 

> _“Dear Uncle Takumi,_
> 
> _Happy birthday! I am sorry I cant be there with you but I hope you are having a good day and so does Father. I drew you a picture as a present. Its you and me and you are being a pegasus again and we are flying through the clouds and youre taking me back home to Hoshido. Sorry its a bit messy, my blue chalk broke when I was colouring in the sky. I also did a picture of a flower I found in the garden, I think its called a lily. Can you please give it to Oboro so she can make a kanzashi that looks like the flower? Theres someone I want to give it to as a present._
> 
> _We are all very busy here because it is the solstice soon. It is a big festival in the winter. Aunt Camilla says on the solstice the sun doesnt rise at all and its just dark all day, and everyone gives each other presents and eats a lot and sings songs, and then we stay up all night telling scary stories. I have learned how to play some of the songs on my piano and everyone says I am very good at singing as well, but I dont know any scary stories except the one about the dragon that eats little boys who dont wash behind their ears. Father says Mother used to know lots of them, so he will teach me one of the ones she told him and then I will tell it to everyone. And when I can come and see you, or you can come and see me, I will tell it to you too._
> 
> _I hope we can see each other soon because I really really miss you. Say hello to Uncle Ryouma and Aunt Hinoka and Aunt Sakura and everyone else, and tell them Im missing them too. Happy birthday._
> 
> _Love from Shigure”_
> 
> \- A letter from Prince Shigure, to Takumi, second prince of Hoshido and Minister of the Left, dated December 13th, 1319. King Ryouma had initially arranged for Prince Takumi to serve as the envoy accompanying the young crown prince to Nohr, but owing to the investigation he was running at the time, the prince was forced to decline the position, which was then given to Princess Kamui in his stead. How the course of history might have been altered, if Kamui had stayed and Takumi had departed, has been the subject of much debate among historians these seven hundred years. Professor Zosimos was of the opinion that, given the role Prince Takumi would play in the events that unfolded that winter, little would have changed; Princess Alruna, however, wrote that “when you consider the importance of the discoveries Princess Hinoka made that winter… it is quite likely that, had Prince Takumi not enlisted her aid in his investigation, the timeline that followed would have seen King Leo and Princess Kamui slain at the Canyon, and that the rest of human civilisation would have fallen quickly thereafter.”

 

“Gods, sorry you have to spend your birthday working.”

Actually, _working_ was putting it mildly. Hinoka had come to Takumi’s office to find the floor so heavily carpeted with important-looking papers that getting into the room, without trampling on them, had involved playing a quick round of The Floor is Lava. The man himself had been sitting cross-legged at the centre of it all, slightly dishevelled and still dressed in the same clothes he’d been wearing yesterday.

“Ach, it’s fine,” Takumi shrugged. “Honestly, it’s a relief to just treat it like a regular day. Having people make a big deal out of it is kind of uncomfortable, you know?”

In fact Hinoka didn’t know. Takumi was an odd kid sometimes: he had once admitted to her that he often felt neglected and undervalued by those around him, but then actually being at the centre of attention always made him nervous. So she just nodded, and hummed a noncommittal “Mhm.”

“Wouldn’t say no to a present if you’ve got one for me, though,” he added with a hopeful grin, as he eyed the sack slung over her shoulder.

“Well, I don’t know if I’d really call it a present exactly, but you’re gonna like it.” She left her spear propped against the wall, and swung the sack to the floor, the draught sending a few errant papers soaring, and pulled out the invisible samurai’s robe with a triumphant flourish. “Check it out! We got it off him when - Takumi? Hey… _Takumi?!_ ”

No sooner had she taken out the robe than Takumi’s face split into a pained grimace. He gripped at his head, first with one hand on his brow, then with both clutching his temples; silent, save for the laboured hiss of his breathing and the occasional groan of discomfort. Gingerly, Hinoka tapped him on the shoulder.

“Should I get Sakura?” she asked. Takumi sucked a ragged breath in through gritted teeth; he opened his mouth a few times, as if he were about to try speaking, but it was a good minute and a half before he actually found the words.

“No. Yes? I don’t know,” he gasped. “Gods, my head…”

“What’s wrong with it?” Hinoka cast an apprehensive glance down at the robe in her hand; was it cursed somehow? Maybe with the same sort of spell as the one that Nohrian mage had used to manipulate Takumi into spying for him during the war?

Takumi shook his head, then let out a pained hiss and clamped his hands more desperately over his head. “It’s fine, I just… ngh…”

Time stood still for a moment, as Hinoka forced her panic down to debate with herself on what ought to be done. If her brother _had_ been cursed, then she really should go and fetch Orochi: the queen was probably the only person in the city who’d know what could be done for him. But Orochi would be in the prison right now, still trying to crack Kazama. Getting to her would involve dragging Takumi down five floors, out of the keep, and halfway across the castle’s grounds - gods knew how many servants and courtiers they’d pass on the way down. It wasn’t as if she could leave him unattended, either: the last time he'd fallen under this particular spell, it had driven him into a murderous frenzy. Hinoka remembered that day in the woods of Mokushu, where he had opened fire on friend and foe alike; if he sank back into that state now, when he had no foes… no, she’d really do better to stay where she could restrain him, if it came to that. But whatever was causing this episode, it didn’t seem likely to pass on its own, and Hinoka certainly could do nothing for him. Damn it all, where was that necklace of Azura’s when she needed it?

She was casting about for some means of restraining him when the door slid open.

“Here, I brought you some clean clothes. We don’t have to do anything special today if you’d rather not, but no fiancé of mine is going to spend his birthday in -”

Oboro had not so much as stepped into the room before her words died in her throat. She’d come in carrying a bundle of carefully-folded hakama, but when she took in the scene she’d walked in on, they fell from her arms to pool on the floor in a crumpled heap. In a perfect outline of the seriousness of the situation, she disregarded them completely as she flew, kicking up papers like piles of fallen leaves, to Takumi’s side.

“Thank gods, Oboro,” said Hinoka, fighting to keep her voice as level as she could manage. “I’m thinking he might be cursed again. If you wait with him while I go get Orochi -”

“It’s okay, I got this,” Oboro assured her with a light shake of her head; but she didn’t take her eyes off Takumi, and her face was steely as she gripped him by the shoulders.

“Takumi,” she said softly. Her voice was gentle, but it rang with a clear resoluteness that was, in itself, oddly reassuring; like a general talking her fellow officers through what she knew without a doubt was a winning strategy. It was a voice Hinoka herself had spent many years practicing. “Hey, Takumi. Whatever you’re remembering right now… it’s not happening anymore. You’re not in that place any more. You’re safe in your study, with me and Lady Hinoka.” Her fingers tightened briefly on his shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze to reinforce the fact that she was really there. “You’ll never have to go back to that place again.”

Takumi’s hyperventilating began to quieten a little, though it looked like his head still pained him. Oboro raked her fingers over his shoulders in a circular motion, rather like the way the monks raked the gravel in the temple gardens.

“It’s over and done with now,” she repeated. “It’s over and done with.”

She repeated this pattern for several minutes; Hinoka wondered if she ought to run and find Orochi while Oboro was here to supervise him, but judging by how quickly Oboro had known what to do, she supposed this must be something that happened regularly (although that was troubling in itself - why had Takumi never mentioned this to anyone?). At last, Takumi’s breathing slowed to an exhausted, shuddering pant, and his hands fell from his head to rest on Oboro’s back, just below her shoulders.

“Over and done with,” he nodded breathlessly. He opened his eyes, and gave Oboro a drained smile. “Thanks, Oboro. And gods, sorry you had to see that,” he added, addressing Hinoka over his fiancée’s shoulder.

“What _was_ that?” Hinoka asked - rather, she _tried_ to ask; the release of all the agitation she’d been holding back made the words come out sounding more impatient than she’d meant them to. But Takumi took it in stride.

“Just a thing that happens sometimes,” he shrugged. “I used to be pretty dubious about it too, but the healers said it’s normal for veterans. If I see something that takes me back to the war, or... to Mother’s death; Mother’s death especially, in fact - then my head starts to pound, and I can’t breathe.”

Hinoka blinked at him. “So it’s just a regular case of Soldier’s Heart? You’re not cursed?”

Takumi shook his head. “Sometimes that’s all it is. But sometimes, it’s also like…” He paused for a moment, casting about for a fitting analogy. “You know that feeling you get where you can’t remember something, but you know it’s _right there_ at the back of your mind, and that it’s going to drive you crazy until it comes back to you?”

Hinoka frowned. “That doesn’t sound like Soldier’s Heart at all.”

“It’s not,” Oboro confirmed, weighing in with a speed that suggested she knew rather a lot about the subject. Hinoka’s gut gave a little twist of sympathy when it occurred to her why that was: despite the name, the battlefield wasn’t the only place one could develop Soldier’s Heart, as any civilian who’d ever been attacked by Nohrian bandits could tell you. “Lady Sakura’s been studying it a bit, and she reckons a part of his brain’s still recovering from that curse the Nohrians put on him.” Her face crumpled into the Grimace, and her hands balled into fists around the shoulder seams of Takumi’s hakamashita. “So… he still has a mental block about certain things.”

“Hey, calm down there, Oboro! Over and done with, remember?” Takumi snickered, patting one of her hands awkwardly. Her grip on his clothes loosened, and the Grimace melted into a sheepish grin. Oboro had quite a cute smile, Hinoka couldn’t help noticing: between that, and how good she was at helping him deal with whatever had just happened, it seemed Takumi was going to be marrying well.

“Ha, right you are,” she chuckled. “So, what brought it on this time?”

Hinoka cleared her throat awkwardly. “Oh, right! I had a run-in with the invisible samurai when I raided Kazama’s fortress. He managed to avoid capture, but when he escaped, he left his robe behind. I’d hoped you’d be able to source the fabric, but I’ll understand if you’d rather I just take it away again.” Hinoka thought better of producing the robe this time, but Oboro spotted the fabric peeking out of the top of the sack.

“Is this it here? Let me see.” She dropped to her knees and drew out a fold of cloth, bringing it up to her face to appraise more closely. Her entire face was lit up with fascination, but she regarded the fabric coolly, nodding sagely to herself as she stretched and twisted it to catch the light at different angles. It was obvious that she had developed a very clear idea of what she was looking for, even over those few seconds; Hinoka found herself wondering what it must feel like to have reached that level of expertise at something.

“Huh. Well, that’s interesting.” Oboro turned back to Takumi. “I’m going to need to look at the whole thing. Should I take it into a different room, or…?”

Takumi shook his head. “It’s fine, I can look the other way if I have to. Just don’t ask me to wear it, or anything.”

“Ugh, no worries there,” Oboro snorted, as she laid the robe out on the floor. “I thought I’d be able to identify its origin from the cut, but I don’t think anyone in the world would be seen dead in this.”

Hinoka definitely wasn’t any authority on fashion, but the robe wasn’t like any clothes she’d ever seen, either. It was as long as a kimono, with the same loose, boxy sleeves, but the body of the thing was wider, the front sections overlapping each other like the opening of a Nohrian military greatcoat. It didn’t appear to have any sort of fastening, either; the only thing holding it closed was a web of white ribbons that hung over the shoulders and belted the waist. Again, Hinoka didn’t consider herself qualified to form an opinion on its appearance (although it wasn’t something she could imagine Oboro or Princess Camilla wearing), but it certainly didn’t strike her as very practical: she couldn’t see how you would go about getting it on and off, for a start.

“Yeah, interesting,” Oboro repeated, as she took a springing step back to take a last look at it from a distance, before carefully gathering it up again. “Here, you can have it back now.”

“So you can’t tell where it’s from either?” Hinoka was more than a little dismayed at that; when it came to fashion and fabric, if Oboro couldn’t put a name to it, then it didn’t _have_ a name.

“Well, that’s what’s interesting,” said Oboro. “I didn’t recognise the cut from any culture - it looks like someone ripped the sleeves from a haori, and sewed them onto the side-front panels of a…” She caught herself mid-sentence, and trailed off with a gentle cringe. “Ah, excuse me, Lady Hinoka. I’ll not bore you with the design stuff. Anyway, I couldn't place the shapes used, but I _have_ seen this fabric before.”

Hinoka’s heart leapt at that. “You have? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Oboro admitted. “But Lady Mikoto had a dress made of a material exactly like this.”

Well, Hinoka wasn’t sure what she had expected to hear, but it hadn’t been that.

“Mother?” Takumi frowned, echoing Hinoka’s own disbelief. “I’ve only ever seen her in kimono.”

“Yeah, I don’t know when she’d have worn it either. If she’d ever gone out in a garment that unusual, I guarantee Lady Hinoka and I would both be wearing similar shapes now. Fashion doesn’t pass over something that exotic; especially not when the first person to wear it is a queen. But I only saw it when she lent it to me as a reference to work from, when I was making those dresses for Lady Azura.”

“Huh. I did always wonder where she got those from, now that you mention it,” Hinoka mused.

“I can go fetch it, if you’d like to take a look at it yourself,” Oboro offered. “If you ask around about it, maybe someone else will remember where she got it from.”

“You still have it?”

“Mhm!” Oboro nodded brightly. “When I finished making Lady Azura’s clothes, I went to give it back to her, but she told me to hold onto it. ‘Someone’s going to need it more than I do, one day,’ she said. At the time, I assumed she meant I was to keep it for Lady Kamui to wear, but maybe she was actually talking about this investigation?”

A lump rose in Hinoka’s throat, which she just barely managed to swallow down. The idea that Mother was still watching over them, even if it was only through her predictions, was very comforting somehow. And if she knew they’d need her dress… well, maybe she knew that, if she left it to them, then they’d stand a chance when they faced whatever Orochi had seen coming.

“Yeah, I think she was,” Hinoka nodded stoically. “And I think I would like to see it, if it’s not too much of a bother.”

“Of course, milady! Back in a moment.” Oboro bobbed a quick bow, and shot Takumi another sunny smile over her shoulder as she passed him on her way out to his personal quarters, and presumably from there to her own. As Takumi’s fiancée, they had offered her her own set of rooms, but she had insisted on staying in the small, one-roomed apartment that adjoined Takumi’s quarters, until after the wedding. People would call her an upstart, she’d said, and maybe she wasn’t wrong.

“So I guess you haven’t had any luck with that yet, either,” said Takumi, nodding towards Hinoka’s spear. She shook her head.

“Ryouma’s never seen anything like it, and neither has Yukimura. Sakura recognised the design at the butt of the haft, but she can’t remember where she saw it.”

“It is a weird design, now that you mention it. Pretty flimsy, for a weapon,” Takumi mused, as he went over to examine it. He wasn’t wrong, honestly: the weapon weighed practically nothing in Hinoka’s hand, even though she was out of practice. Her right arm was still a little stiff, but Sakura had agreed that it had healed enough for Hinoka to get back to her usual training. “Maybe it was meant to be ceremonial?”

“Kind of plain for a ceremonial spear, though,” Hinoka pointed out. Aside from the guard, with its carved wings and its glassy stone, the only other ornamentation to be found on the spear was a loop of golden-painted wood, about the size of Hinoka’s fist, at the end of the haft.

Takumi shrugged. “Well, if one of the invisible samurai’s men dropped it, then we’ll probably be able to source it when we find someone who knows where Mother got her dress.”

“Speaking of,” Hinoka nodded a greeting to Oboro, as she returned with her arms wrapped protectively, almost reverently, around a small paulownia-wood chest.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Here you go, Lady Hinoka.” She moved past Takumi and Hinoka to set the box carefully down on Takumi’s desk.

The folded fabric inside was certainly similar to the stuff used to make the robe, though it looked a little less heavy: it was a soft white fabric, with a slight shimmer to it, like the little flecks of blue light that glinted off new snow. In that moment, though, Hinoka couldn’t have cared less if the chest had been filled with sackcloth, if it had carried the same scent as the one that still clung to Mother’s dress. It was a sweet, soothing smell; a smell of lavender and night-flowering jasmine; a smell of strawberries and sakuramochi; a smell of warm hands gently ruffling Hinoka’s hair.

Hinoka swallowed again, but this time there was no choking her tears back completely. She didn’t dare try to catch Takumi’s eye; she could tell, by the quiet shuddering sound of his breathing, that his would be as red-rimmed as her own.

Gingerly, Hinoka lifted the dress out of the chest; its skirt spilled to the floor with a soft whisper of air that almost sounded like Mother’s laugh in itself. There were a few similarities to the robe, but this time, even Hinoka could be in no doubt as to the beauty of the garment. It was made up of two layers: the first was a dress, cut as a single long piece, but in a more natural, tapering shape than the bulky robe, ending in a skirt so loose and light that it probably would have formed a full circle if it was spread out on the ground. A second layer of skirt had been attached to it, split down the middle to expose the one underneath. It was lined with a soft, sea-green fabric, and belted at the waist with a crossed pattern of green ribbons similar to the white ones that covered the robe.

It was the brooches that caught Hinoka’s attention, though. They were pinned to the upper skirt at either side, holding the trailing ribbons fast to the fabric: two stylised blue flowers, their rounded petals rimmed with gold.

“So that’s why these were all over Azura’s clothes,” Hinoka chuckled. Oboro nodded.

“Lady Mikoto was quite insistent on that front. When we were designing them, I was allowed to play around with the shapes and fabrics as much as I liked - she even suggested a few changes I could make - but the one thing she asked was that I incorporate these flowers into the design somewhere.” She smiled ruefully. “I guessed they held some kind of special meaning, so I tried to avoid changing their design too much.”

Hinoka passed it back to Oboro carefully, before Mother’s smell could fade from the fabric; the girl folded it expertly away again, and gently lowered the box’s lid over it once more.

“I’ll ask around about it, like you said,” Hinoka nodded. “Thank you, Oboro.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. It’s my life’s work to serve Lord Takumi and his family, and to supply people with the clothes they need. This was like an intersection of both my jobs at once,” Oboro quipped, before sinking into a graceful bow. Gods, she already carried herself more like a princess than Hinoka did; she’d fit right in at court. “But I’m glad I was able to be of some help.”

“Are you going to go and ask about it now?” asked Takumi.

“Well, I’ve no other plans for the day,” Hinoka shrugged. “Mainly because _somebody_ told us at the last minute that he didn’t want us to throw him a party.”

“Hey, _I’m_ the birthday prince here. _I_ get to decide how we celebrate it,” Takumi retorted, in a voice that almost sounded like he was serious. “Anyway. Good luck with the investigation.”

“Thanks. Good luck with… whatever all this is.” Hinoka waved a hand over the paperwork spread across the floor.

“It’s a series of historian’s notes on the political events leading to the fall of Kouga. The subject matter is dry, and the prose is impenetrable.” He grinned, then. “So basically, it’s exactly what I want to spend today thinking about.”

Hinoka snorted. “Happy birthday, little brother. I’ll catch you later, I guess.”

“Little yourself. In three hours’ time, I’ll officially be twenty-four,” Takumi countered. “But yeah, see you arou - _ack!_ ”

His quiet drawl shot up into a wild yelp, as a shadow dropped down from the ceiling to land in front of them.

“Lady Hinoka. Lord Takumi.” Kagerou inclined her head in a respectful bow to both of them in turn. “I come bearing a message from Orochi.”

“The door was _right there_ ,” Takumi protested.

“What’s the message?” asked Hinoka eagerly: if Orochi wasn’t in a position to come and fetch them herself, then Hinoka had a feeling that she could guess what this was about already.

“She asks that the two of you meet with her at the prison, as soon as you are able. It is a matter of some urgency: the prisoner she has spent this past week interrogating has, at last, agreed to surrender the information you seek.”

“Kazama’s going to talk?” Hinoka turned, slowly, to Takumi; the grin on his face was near identical to the one spreading across hers. “Damn, sorry to make you cancel your birthday plans, little brother.”

“Oh, I’ll live,” he replied blithely. “Catching Mother’s killer is the best birthday present a guy could ask for, anyway.”

 

* * *

 

Kazama sat cross-legged on the floor of his cell, as primly composed as if he was in one of the castle’s guest rooms, and the officials observing him from beyond the bars had come to take tea with him; as if his hands were clasped behind his back in meditation, not bound there by Orochi’s spell. His kusari had been confiscated, leaving him clad in a simple kosode of undyed cotton, and his hair fell unbound over his shoulders; but where the prison garb made every other prisoner look like a beggar, something in Kazama’s demeanour only made him look ethereal. Hinoka was reminded, vaguely, of the moon spirits in the fairytale, their faces perfectly, uncaringly serene as they tore Kaguya away from her family.

Hinoka dismissed _that_ bit of melodrama as quickly as she’d thought it; that, she told herself brusquely, was probably just her fury over Mother’s death, and her contempt for child-abductors, playing on her mind. Either way, though, if he could still be that smug right before being questioned, that was hardly a good sign.

“I thought you said you’d cracked him?” Hinoka hissed. Even when her speech was lowered to her quietest whisper, she was still left with the unsettling feeling that Kazama could hear every word she said.

“I said he’s agreed to talk,” Orochi corrected. “I’m dubious too, though. He managed to last eight days without giving anything away.”

She didn’t need to go into any more detail than that; that statement, on its own, said everything. It wasn’t exactly the done thing for the queen of Hoshido to work as a gaoler: Orochi had seen to Kazama personally because she was the best in the business. Half the prisoners they’d taken during the war had actually defected to serving Kamui, all thanks to Orochi’s head games. Not just underpaid, disillusioned grunts and mercenaries, either - she had cracked Nohrian officers, and even generals. Ryouma had quipped once, during the war, that if they left Orochi on her own with King Garon for an hour, they’d come back to find the tyrant meekly serving her tea and wagashi. It shouldn’t have taken her more than three days to break Kazama; for her to have taken more than a week, to gain such a shaky level of control over him… just what sort of a man were they dealing with here?

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Takumi sighed. “Still, his hands are bound. The worst thing he can really do is try to mess with our heads. Just… watch for that.”

He was right, of course: Kazama’s wrists were bound so tightly together that the backs of his hands were touching. It was unlikely that he could so much as stand up without losing his balance; the most threatening thing he’d be able to do was flick his middle fingers at the bare wall behind him. Even so, her fingers tightened on the haft of her strange white spear, as Orochi stepped forward to unlock the cell.

Kazama didn’t even turn his head when the door scraped open, even though the rough screeching of old metal against older metal would set any normal person’s teeth on edge. Takumi filed in first, and Orochi slipped in after him; Hinoka made to follow, but Orochi held a halting hand up to her.

“We’ll need someone guarding the door,” she explained, passing Hinoka the keys. “Probably best if you keep an eye on these, too.”

Hinoka nodded, and quickly settled into her old sentry stance. She’d been put on guard detail at the prison in Kamui’s camp often, and it gave her a kind of happy, nostalgic feeling to be doing it again. She shouldered her spear proudly, and stood to attention by the door, observing the interrogation through the bars.

Orochi took out a blank scroll and an ink brush, and muttered something at them. They flew out of her hands, the scroll unfurling in the air, and hovered overhead, poised as if some invisible scribe stood awaiting dictation. She and Takumi sat down opposite Kazama, dropping to meet him at his eye level. Hinoka wouldn't have done that: it made them look cooperative, sure, but to her mind, treating Kazama as an equal was giving him more power in this negotiation than a man like him could be trusted with. Still, she supposed, if Orochi thought it was a good idea, then perhaps after all it was.

The three negotiators stared each other down for a long moment, both sides waiting for the other to break the silence first. Eventually, Kazama spoke; as he did, the ink brush moved, on its own, across the paper - it was making a written record of what was being said, Hinoka realised. Gods, had magic always had that many uses off the battlefield?

“Prince Takumi, I presume,” Kazama stated, in a tone that added in an unvoiced parenthesis that he wasn’t _presuming_ anything; that he knew damn well who Takumi was, and knew a lot else about him besides his name and face. “Might I preface this discussion by offering my congratulations on your serving on the kuge at such a young age?”

Takumi bristled at that, and opened his mouth to strike back, but Hinoka could just see Orochi jab one of her fingernails into his tricep. He bit back whatever retort he’d been about to make, and nodded curtly. “I am grateful to have progressed in my career so quickly, yes.”

“He’s a prodigy. Lord Ryouma appointed him personally,” put in Orochi cheerily. Hinoka raised an eyebrow at that, for a second, before she caught herself and lowered it again: Orochi hadn’t referred to Ryouma with an honorific since the day he first proposed to her. Was she counting on Kazama not knowing that she was queen? Hinoka really couldn’t see that one working; if he’d had access to as much information on their family as he kept implying, then there was just no way he wouldn’t have heard of High Prince Shiro’s mother.

Unless… had he _only_ heard of her? It occurred to Hinoka that Orochi didn't actually spend a lot of time in the public eye (much to Oboro’s chagrin). Ryouma had announced his engagement formally, but his wedding had been a quiet affair, hastily cobbled together about eight months before Shiro was born; his coronation portrait, too, had depicted him alone - again, at Orochi’s insistence. At the time, Orochi had airily said that it was because she didn’t want people badgering her for autographs while she was out buying herbs, but now Hinoka wondered if there was a more pressing reason for it: it meant that only those who had already met her, in a formal context, would have seen her closely enough to recognise her face. As far as the people were concerned, Ryouma’s wife was a woman named Orochi, with purple hair, who had been a diviner in Mother’s service. As far as a man who hadn’t been in the city since before the war would know, she was just a regular gaoler.

Still, even if Kazama hadn’t seen her with his own eyes, he’d probably still have at least a few spies at court. It was possible that this could end up blowing back onto Orochi; but then, surely she’d know that too, and have planned for that…

Gods, this was already making Hinoka’s head hurt, and they hadn’t been here five minutes. No, best if she left the complicated schemes to her siblings; until she’d taken some time to study all this properly, at least.

Kazama nodded sagely. “I see. Well, that does check out: in the court of Shirasagi, the progression of a man’s career is largely dependent on who his relations are.”

This time it was Hinoka’s turn to snap. “You know, last I checked, murder and child abuse were worse crimes than nepotism.”

Orochi closed her eyes in an exasperated frown at that; Kazama’s face, meanwhile, remained perfectly placid.

“So the captain of the city’s guard owns to the fact that her family engages in nepotism. Your self-awareness does you credit, Princess Hinoka.” Kazama did not turn to face her as he spoke. Gods, even Orochi’s magic ink brush seemed to think he was sleazy; it spattered ink over the paper in quick bursts, as if vomiting it out.

“Wow,” Hinoka muttered. “I’ve never met a man with a punchable _voice_ before.”

“Anyway, I think we’ve covered the pleasantries,” put in Orochi, before things could go any farther south from there. She shot Hinoka a wilting _when this is over we’ll be having words_ glare out of the corner of her eye; a sort of long-distance equivalent of her jab at Takumi. “I brought these two here because you said you were ready to answer our questions. If that’s changed, we can leave you again…”

Kazama actually smiled at that: a tight, knowing smirk, of the sort that some women found quite dashing. To Hinoka, though, it just made him look like a snake.

“I will speak,” he conceded, “but of course, my confidence comes at a price.”

Hinoka’s eyes narrowed at that. It was fairly obvious what his demands would be: a pardon and release, and probably a disgusting percentage of the royal treasury. Her hands tightened on the haft of her spear; if there was one thing she’d learned from her dealings with that craven little Nohrian dark mage Kamui had captured during the war, it was that a switch could get a horse moving just as well as a carrot could.

Orochi inclined her head, in a subtle gesture that could be taken as a nod, but was just noncommittal enough to avoid looking like she was outright agreeing to anything yet. “We’re listening.”

“My name,” said Kazama simply. “My honour. My education. My career. My inheritance. All were denied me, when my entire family was banished from the royal court, as punishment for crimes that were my father’s alone. I had yet to complete my studies, when you cast me out to scratch a living off rocks; and now that I am of use to the crown again, you come to me begging for my counsel. And so, I say to you: I will speak, but in exchange, I am to be pardoned of all my past crimes, admitted back into the royal court, and at last restored to the life that was - and is - my birthright.”

Well, that was unexpected. And yet, Hinoka felt like she really should have seen that coming. One look at the way Kazama spoke, the way he carried himself, the way he viewed others, would have told you that despite everything, he still considered himself a lord; that he still felt entitled to a lord’s lifestyle. But they couldn’t actually give in to these demands, could they? Even if the crime that cost him his lands and titles hadn't been his, he had committed plenty of worse ones since.

Back in the cell, Takumi made a hissing sound that Hinoka eventually recognised as suppressed laughter.

“I see the injustices of the Hoshidan legal system are as amusing to the royal family as they ever were,” Kazama remarked; this time, the underlying bitterness of his words could almost be heard in his tone. Almost.

“He’s got to be joking, though,” Takumi snorted. “Why would we -”

But Orochi tapped a finger against her chin, considering his offer. “If we agree to this, you’ll talk?”

“I did not make the request to admire the sound of my own voice,” Kazama riposted drily. Hinoka didn’t trust herself to speak aloud, but inside her head she mused that somehow she had a hard time believing him there. “Yes. Consent to my terms, and I shall cooperate with you.”

“Okay, then,” Orochi nodded. “Tell us what you know, and I’ll see you cleared of everything you’re currently charged with.”

Kazama regarded her oddly. “You? Much has changed since I was last at court; I did not realise gaolers were held in such high honour. Still, it’s fitting.”

“My job doesn’t enter into it. I’m on pretty close speaking terms with the queen.” She gestured to the floating scroll. “As you can see, everything we say here is being recorded in writing, so you can be sure that I’m not making any promises here that I don’t mean to keep.”

Takumi and Hinoka both opened their mouths to voice their objections, but Orochi waved them silent. “Anyway, you said you’d answer our questions if we agreed to that, so I’ll get the ball rolling. Those invisible soldiers we fought in your hideout: where did they come from?”

“Interesting that the prince and princess have their servant ask the questions for them,” Kazama remarked. A barb of panic jabbed Hinoka at that; she wasn't sure what Orochi had planned, but she got the feeling that it would be best if he didn’t know who she was.

“Interesting that the prisoner thinks he can use quibbles like that to distract us from the fact that he’s already avoiding our questions,” she retorted hastily. Orochi shot her another quick glance, but this one was rather more approving than the last. Emboldened by this, Hinoka continued, a little more brusquely. “Now answer; unless you’d rather stay in this cell after all.”

Kazama seemed faintly amused by that. “As you wish, princess. Fortunately, the answer to that particular question is fairly concise: I do not know where they came from. They simply appeared that day; rising off the floors like mist. Indeed, I had supposed that your diviner summoned them, in order to weaken my stronghold’s defences before your raiding party came in.”

“Ha, I wish,” Orochi cackled. Takumi eyed her with some distaste. “What? I know quality work when I see it.”

Takumi grimaced at that, and shook his head in exasperation. Hinoka, meanwhile, had a feeling she’d seized on Orochi’s tactic of choice here: Kazama might know more of them than they did of him, but one thing Hinoka had known from the moment she’d met him was that the man was downright smitten with himself; he _knew_ what an impressive figure he was, and relished the effect he had on people. By presenting herself as being of a lower station than Kazama, Orochi could charm him into letting something slip by appealing to his ego.

Well, that was easy enough to play along with.

Hinoka frowned. “So _you_ didn’t summon them?”

For the first time, Kazama turned to face her directly; he cast her a withering look. “Now, why on earth would I attack my own stronghold?”

“To make it look to us like they weren’t under your control,” Takumi pointed out. “To cover up your reason for being in the capital in the September of 1314.”

“Which is?” Kazama tutted, and shook his head. “You have asked your question; I have answered. It is my turn now. Why am I really here? If I was arrested for thievery or trafficking, Princess Hinoka would not have led the raid personally.”

“Actually, I do drug busts quite often,” Hinoka countered. “I _am_ captain of the city guard, y’know.”

“Indeed; which is even less reason to take a job six hours out of the city. No, you’re investigating something more serious than that. And as it happens, my question was largely rhetorical: your eagerness to ask me about those creatures was all I needed to guess what I stand accused of. You think me complicit in the murder of Sumeragi’s mistress.”

Takumi and Hinoka both sprang up at that one, and even Orochi’s face soured; Hinoka thrust her spear between the bars of the cell door, level with Kazama’s temple.

“You know, Takumi,” Hinoka snarled. “There is another way to find out if he was summoning them: cut him, and see if they pop up again after he’s dead.”

“I like your style, Princess Hinoka. It brings back _such_ pleasant memories of my time in Nohr,” remarked Kazama calmly, with another oily smirk. The comment did strike a nerve, but it was obviously meant to; Hinoka did not lower her blade. “Regardless, you’ll find no answers here: I came to the city that autumn with a specific purpose, and left as soon as my business was done. I had been and gone long before the attack on the square took place.”

“But you could still have cast the spell while you were there, and let it lie dormant until you were out of the city,” Takumi pointed out; then turned to Orochi. “Right?”

“I could,” Kazama conceded, “given the proper training. However, as I have already stated, my education was disrupted by my family’s deterioration in circumstances. I am humble enough to admit that I am ignorant in how to sustain a spell for that length of time. Indeed, if you mean to find your culprit among the aristocracy, then the witch that hangs off King Ryouma’s arm is a more likely mark.”

He was looking slyly at Orochi as he said this. Damn it all, he _did_ know who she was. Hinoka slipped a sidelong glance at Orochi, checking her reaction; her face was still as bright as ever, but a little spark of amusement danced in the corner of her eye.

“So what _were_ you in the capital for, then?” she asked, in an easy, conversational tone. Above her, the ink brush weaved over the paper in a relaxed dance.

“My crew had procured a shipment of powdered laughing caps, which we had come to sell on to the Guild of Alchemists. Ask them about it, if you’d like; you’ll find the alibi checks out, and covers the entirety of my visit. I had their Guildmaster accompany me to the city gate, under the eyes of a few ninja, to ensure that he didn’t get any clever ideas about reporting me after I’d left the guild hall.” The trading of hallucinogens without a permit was punishable by imprisonment on its own, but Kazama spoke confidently and without hesitation. Probably he figured that it didn’t matter what he admitted to now, since they’d already agreed to clear him of all of it anyway.

“So he’s not the one who planted the attack on the square,” Hinoka mused dubiously. “But he could still be the one sealing -”

“Hold on, I have some more questions,” Takumi interrupted quickly; but not quickly enough. Kazama’s snaky smile widened.

Damn. Bloody _damn_.

“No, no, ladies first,” he purred, turning to Hinoka. She repositioned her spear, lining the point up with his eye; he barely seemed to notice the blade was even there.

“You mentioned that someone is being sealed,” he began, in the same deceptively-amiable tone Orochi had used when interrogating him. “Considering that the matter was deemed important enough to be brought to _your_ attention, Princess Hinoka, I assume the diviner in question must be fairly high-ranking. From there, it becomes fairly easy to surmise who the unfortunate lady must be: it isn’t often that one sees a queen moonlighting as a gaoler.”

Well, so much for Orochi’s ruse. Curiously, she didn’t seem too bothered by that; she just laughed.

“What, a girl can’t have a hobby?” she quipped.

“Well, my sources claimed that your hobby was divination,” said Kazama silkily. “But of course, that isn’t an option anymore, is it? One wonders what further use the king must have for you. Assuming he even knows about this, of course.”

Actually, that was a good point: _did_ Ryouma know about their investigation? Hinoka had assumed that he did, but her brother didn’t exactly get a lot of free time to talk with her; these days, she only really saw him during mealtimes, and the investigation into Mother’s death wasn’t a subject any of them wanted to bring up in front of Sakura.

“Oh, he knows.” Orochi shrugged. “It would’ve been difficult to stop him from finding out, seeing as he’s asked to see the record of this conversation when we’re done. Anyway, Takumi, you said you had more questions.”

But Kazama shook his head. “No more questions today, I think. I have given you all the information I have pertaining to your investigation; and transcript or no, I only have your word for it that you mean to uphold your end of our bargain.”

Hinoka and Takumi both bristled at that; it was one thing for him to condescend to Orochi when he had ostensibly believed her to be a servant, but to knowingly address his queen like that, and then demand a position at court… Hinoka may not have been an expert on courtly etiquette, but she knew that being openly rude to those of a higher station to oneself wasn’t really the done thing.

But Orochi nodded, smiling sweetly, and motioned to her ink brush to stop writing. The scroll gave itself a little shake, to dry the ink, and then folded itself away as it and the brush fell into Orochi’s lap. “Of course I’ll uphold it. You are cleared of all the charges we arrested you for; I’ll have the warrant drawn up when I get back to my quarters. Hinoka, get the door.”

Hinoka looked at the lock. She looked at Orochi, who was nodding encouragingly. She looked at Takumi.

Takumi looked back, his face mirroring her own apprehension. He flicked his eyes, briefly, at the lock.

Hinoka swallowed, and opened the door.

Orochi came out first; then Takumi. Kazama staggered to his feet, and made to follow.

“You’ll need to unbind my hands, of course,” he smirked at Orochi.

“Hm? Oh, no, there doesn’t seem to be much point in that. You’re going back inside in a minute anyway.”

Kazama’s smirk shattered. “Excuse me? You said I was cleared of all charges. It is recorded there in your own writings. Unless the royal family has officially forsaken that honour you’re all so fond of pontificating about.”

“No, we held to our word,” said Orochi airily, unrolling the scroll and pointing out the agreement, as rendered in her fluid, looping hand. “Here, look. I said you were cleared of all the charges you’d been brought in for, and you are. Unfortunately, you then confessed - unprompted - to trafficking a hallucinogenic substance into the city of Shirasagi without a permit, taking a hostage in order to avoid arrest, and bringing spies into the city.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Now, I’m no expert on the legal system - my job was always just to take care of the convicts when they got here. Takumi, you wouldn’t happen to know what the normal sentence for these crimes is?”

Hinoka almost laughed aloud. Gods, who was the real criminal mastermind here?

The corner of Takumi’s mouth twitched, as he battled with his face in the same way Hinoka was fighting hers. “ _Well_. Trafficking on its own is punishable by up to ten years in prison, depending on how dangerous the substance in question is. Laughing caps can cause various medical problems when consumed, particularly in people who already have a history of mental instability. As far as I know, they’re not lethal, though, so I reckon that’d only get him about five, maybe six years tops.”

“Well, this is very amusing,” put in Kazama, “but you still -”

“I wasn’t done,” Takumi retorted. “As I say, the trafficking on its own would get him six years. However, espionage and kidnapping are more serious offences. The sentence there varies from class to class: historically, in cases where the culprit was of a rank below samurai, the punishment was usually an execution by firing squad; if he was a samurai, he would be ordered to commit seppuku.”

“Yes, but I’m neither peasant nor samurai. I was born a lord,” Kazama protested.

“You’re not a lord _now_ , though,” Takumi pointed out. “If you were still a lord, you wouldn’t be here, since you wouldn’t have felt the need to do any of the things that got you arrested in the first place. But that’s not my call to make. Orochi, what do you want done with him?”

“Well, I think we can let it slide just this once,” she grinned. “He was _such_ a big help with our investigation, after all. Sentence him according to the station he was born to.”

Takumi nodded. “Right. Life sentence it is, then.”

“Mind escorting Lord Kazama back to his quarters, Hinoka?” Orochi asked sweetly.

Hinoka gave up on trying to keep a straight face. “It would be my pleasure, Lady Orochi.”

Kazama lunged, trying to push his way out past them; Hinoka caught him in the solar plexus with the ring on the butt of her spear. The man crumpled into her waiting grasp, and she sent him stumbling back into his cell.

But, when he raised his head again, he had a curious expression on; he eyed the spear appraisingly, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, now,” he said, in a contemplative, sing-song voice. “ _There’s_ something I never expected to see in the hands of General Hinoka, of all people.”

Hinoka rounded on him. “You know something about this spear? Tell me.”

In answer, he shot her that damn smirk again. Without a word.

Takumi clapped her on the shoulder, and nudged her forwards. “Leave it, Hinoka. He’s probably bluffing.” He tapped his temple with a knuckle. “Messing with you, like I said.”

“Yeah, probably.” Hinoka sighed, and followed him and Orochi to the prison’s exit. “Well, this was a complete waste of our time. Sorry, Takumi.”

“It’s fine. Thanks for pitching in,” he shrugged. “And hey, hopefully someone’ll recognise the dress Oboro gave you, right?”

“I wouldn’t say it was a _complete_ waste, anyway,” said Orochi pleasantly.

Hinoka frowned. “You seem awfully chipper, considering we’re no closer to finding out who’s sealing your future sight.”

“Ah, but we are,” Orochi grinned. “We were able to rule out the most likely suspect we knew of. And now that’s all out of the way, our sisters’ road trip is back on!”

“Oh. Er, great,” said Hinoka, with a weak smile. Damn it, she’d hoped all this Kazama business would have been enough to make Orochi forget about that.

Takumi raised an eyebrow. “What’s this?”

“Oh, we’re just planning a little mini-break in Izumo. Little bit of sisterly bonding time. - hey, you should ask Oboro if she wants to join us! She’s marrying into the family soon, after all.”

Takumi scratched at the back of his neck; he looked a little red. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘soon’, but…”

The conversation continued without Hinoka. Looking at her, you might have said her mind was miles away; but in truth, it was closer to her than either of her siblings were. It was focussed firmly on the spear in her hand.

She knew she was being ridiculous. She knew that Kazama had probably just noticed how unusual the design was, and guessed that she’d picked it up during the fight with those ghostly soldiers. She knew he was trying to get into her head, and that by dwelling on his silence, she was letting him. But he wasn’t the first person to recognise the design: it had struck Sakura as familiar too, although she still hadn’t been able to remember where she’d seen it.

 _“There’s something I never expected to see in the hands of General Hinoka, of all people.”_ \- what could that have meant? Was he insinuating that there was something sinister about the spear - that it was stolen, or associated with some other crime lord?

Hinoka lifted it slightly from the ground, twisting it around in her palm, watching the sunlight run laps around the gold ring at its base. She needed to think about this more calmly. If Sakura and Kazama had both recognised it, that probably meant it held some kind of magical properties; which would also explain why it was so much lighter in her hand than a weapon of its size had any right to be. And if it was magical… would Archduke Izana know something about it?

Hinoka sighed. She still wasn’t looking forward to Orochi’s Izumo trip, but maybe it would be of more use to her than she’d thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot, first chapter of 2019!!! :D Hope you're all having a good one so far!
> 
> \- “Minister of the Left” doesn’t mean what “left” usually means in politics. In the kuge, the four highest offices (aside from the emperor himself, of course) were, in order, the Daijou-daijin (Chief Minister), Sadaijin (Minister of the Left), Udaijin (Minister of the Right), and Naidaijin (Minister of the Centre). Since Yukimura is basically presented as serving the role of the Daijou-daijin throughout the game, and given also Takumi’s relative youth and inexperience, I felt it was likely that Ryouma would have him start as the Sadaijin and then promote him when Yukimura retires. I suppose I could have just referred to him as an “advisor” like the game does Yukimura, but, well… I’m far too much of a weeaboo for that, haha.
> 
> \- I’m sorry, you can’t expect me to give Oboro dialogue and not gush at least a little about how absurdly cool Marisha Ray’s voice is. Especially not in a scene written from the POV of the original Disaster Lesbian (I know, Oboro’s more Keyleth than Beau, but still).
> 
> \- As an autistic person who has also had PTSD, Oboro’s technique is one of my favourite ways of dealing with both intrusive thoughts and flashbacks: the idea is to focus, simultaneously, on assuring yourself that whatever you’re remembering isn’t happening anymore, and on being mindful of your body and the space it occupies in the current moment. Repeating a mantra to yourself along the lines of “that’s not real” or “that isn’t happening anymore” helps too, but try to actually SAY it rather than thinking it, even if it’s under your breath: again, the idea is to focus on the way the words feel in your throat and on your lips, to remind yourself of what is real and what isn’t. It’s a technique that’s helped me a lot, and if anyone else here has need of it, I hope it helps :D
> 
> \- As you can probably guess, “Soldier’s Heart” was one of the various epithets given to the symptoms of PTSD during the American Civil War. In real life, the condition was blamed on overexertion rather than the trauma of battle, but Hoshido does seem to be a lot more advanced in its grasp of medical science than we were (for a start, Sakura knows what germs are), so in this fic it’s just what they call PTSD. The Civil War is also a bit after the time this fic is set in (juuust a bit) (500 years is little more than a heartbeat, really), but isn’t the name just too delightful not to use anyway?!
> 
> \- I get kind of cherry-picky about which parts of the spinoffs I accept as canon (I would elaborate here, but I don’t trust myself not to start ranting, haha), but one detail I do quite like from the manga is the idea of Mikoto having a haori made for Kamui every year. Aside from the fact that Mikoto designing clothes for her kids is the single most adorable mental image in the world, when you think about it, it really is the only explanation for where Azura’s very obviously Vallite-looking dress could have come from. (Besides, Foleo had to get his talent for fashion design from somewhere…)
> 
> \- Chests for storing kimono were traditionally made from paulownia wood, since the wood contains natural mothproofing properties. Well, they’re commonly referred to in English as “chests”, but perhaps that’s a misnomer: most of them were really closer in shape and size to an Ikea cabinet, haha. Smaller ones were a thing though, especially for travel and shipping purposes; they kind of looked like little wooden safes, with fancy metal latches instead of a combination lock.
> 
> \- A kosode is a short, loose kimono, which is often worn under hakama as an alternative to a hakamashita (which is more like a kind of kimono-shaped shirt). The kosode wasn’t worn as outerwear until the Edo period, so its use in Hoshido as a prison uniform is a part of the convicts’ punishment: essentially, they’re being made to spend their days in a state of undress.
> 
> \- Figuring out how the Hoshidan penal system works was actually one of the trickiest things I’ve ever had to do in this fic, for the simple reason that, until the Meiji restoration, Japan didn’t actually have a fixed legal code. Order was enforced by daimyos on a local level, and so what crimes merited punishment (aside from the obvious breaches of basic human decency, like murder), and what punishment was meted for them, varied from region to region. Some of them were specific to class, as well: from what I gather, people below the samurai rank tended to be punished most severely, and the samurai themselves really were sometimes given the unique sentence of being forced to commit seppuku. Anyway, I feel like overall Mikoto and Ryouma would both be fairly clement with their sentences, so most things are punishable by imprisonment or manual labour; even Takumi’s comments about execution were probably just a bluff to mess with Kazama.


	18. Who's the Fool Now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jakob discusses the chain of causation by which the city of Windmire might be brought to its knees by a gravy stain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: vague hints of racism on the part of some background characters.
> 
> Apologies also for the overall weirdness of this chapter, both in terms of content and prose: I’ve been having some really bad autistic meltdowns lately, and they tend to leave my internal (and occasionally external) monologue sounding like an uncannily convincing impression of the Earl of Lemongrab for at least a couple days afterwards, haha. So yeah, never try to write when your anxiety’s acting up, kids, that’s my Majou Tip™ for the day.
> 
> I'm absolutely not sorry for the weirdness of what happens at the end of this chapter, though. That made me feel like a kid playing with action figures. I'm still grinning.

 

> _“Dear Felicia,_
> 
> _Thanks for your letter! Sorry for taking so long to reply, I only just got it. I guess it must’ve gotten lost when they sent it over from Hoshido. Still, I hope you and your folks are doing okay, and that your work isn’t too tough._
> 
> _It’s too bad you couldn't come to the coronation. We’ve been staying at the Nohrian castle for a good few weeks now, but we’re actually just about to head out again - we’re not going back to Hoshido yet, but Lady Kamui and King Leo both have errands down south, and Jakob and I are coming along to guard them. Lady Kamui and I were both saying this morning how nice it’d be if we could drop in on you while we’re in your neck of the woods anyway, but we know your father might not be too keen on that, given what happened last time we were there and all. We’ll understand if you’d rather not risk it, but it’d be real nice to see you again. If it’s okay for us to stop by, we’re planning to head off on the 16th, so let us know by then!_
> 
> _As to Lady Kamui’s errand, I have some good news for you (maybe she’s already written you about it, but I’ll tell you anyway just in case). Her and King Leo found out that Mr. Gunter was alive after all, and they managed to rescue him! He’s doing a lot better now, but he’s not completely out of the woods yet: he’d been captured by a gang of rogue sorcerers, and their leader put a curse on him to stop him getting away from them, so now he can’t touch running water. King Leo doesn’t know how to break the curse, but they think the Rainbow Sage might, so we’re heading down to see him about it._
> 
> _Anyway, I don’t have very much else to say, except that I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you again, no matter if it’s in your hometown or in another letter. Write back soon!_
> 
> _All the best, Mozu_
> 
> _(P.S. In your letter, you said I was to let you know if I’d be more comfortable writing these in Hoshidan instead of Nohrian. I’m okay with Nohrian, but it was real nice of you to think of that, thanks!)”_
> 
> \- A letter from Mozu, retainer to Princess Kamui, addressed to the future Chieftess Felicia of the Ice Tribe. The two women maintained correspondence throughout their entire lives, though the letters themselves were exchanged fairly sporadically: this one is dated December 14th, 1319, and appears to be a response to one sent on the first of November.
> 
> Mozu served in Lady Kamui’s household from 1315 until the end of her life; both her lady’s correspondence and her lord’s diaries paint a fond picture of a reliable, practical and amiable woman, whom they appear to have considered a personal friend of the family, rather than a servant.

 

Mozu opened the pantry door a crack, sneaking another quick peek at the dough. It had risen almost to the top of the bowl, but she couldn’t quite tell if that meant it was ready or not. The recipe had said to leave it for about two hours, but Jakob had written a little note in the margin that said _if you like your waybread to have the consistency of a lump of clay; otherwise, make it three_. In the end, she’d left it for three hours to be on the safe side - the recipe book couldn’t get huffy with her for not listening to it, after all.

She supposed she’d better get it into the oven soon, though. Mozu had held off on making the dough until the kitchen staff had gone away for their dinner earlier this evening, but there was no telling if they’d be back again once they’d eaten. Besides, she told herself as she took the bowl down from the shelf, whatever Jakob said, waybread didn’t have to be perfect; it just had to keep you going while you were on the road. Of course, if it had been up to Mozu, they wouldn’t have bothered with waybread at all: she’d just have taken a sack of rice and her tetsubin to cook it in, and that would be dinner sorted for a good three days. When she’d put this to Jakob, though, he’d pointed out how much extra work it would be for them to have to lug the tetsubin around with them while they travelled, and Mozu figured that made sense. So she rolled up her sleeves, floured the kitchen table, and set about kneading the dough for the second time.

It seemed a little odd to Mozu that Lady Kamui had insisted on going all the way to Macarath herself for a warp book, when she could have sent a retainer to get it for her, or sent away for it in the mail. Still, that was Lady Kamui for you: she never let other people do anything for her if she could do it herself, and all the things she couldn’t were things she was working on learning. At least she was letting Mozu and Jakob come with her this time. Jakob had been a wee bit uneasy about leaving Mr. Gunter behind, even for a few days; but King Leo had brought a friend in to watch him until they got back, a Miss Nyx. Mozu had liked her straightaway. She was a teacher at the big, fancy magic school outside the city, and she talked in a way that made you feel like she’d always know what to do if something went wrong. No, Mozu had a feeling that old Mr. Gunter would be in good hands while they were away.

When the dough was good and soft and stretchy, Mozu broke it up into handfuls, rolled them into little balls, and flattened them out with her fingers. They’d need to prove again now that they’d been shaped, but the oven had warmed the kitchen up so nicely that they probably wouldn’t take long. Maybe she could mix up another batch while she was waiting; when you were going to be away for three days, it was always better to bring too much food than not enough, she figured.

She had just finished weighing out the flour and the starter, and was mixing a cup of water and honey into the grain with her fingers, when the door creaked open. Mozu spun round, her hands still covered in lumps of half-mixed dough, to greet the gaggle of servants weaving carefully in with arms full of dirty dishes.

“I can help with those, if you want,” she offered, to the maid stacking the plates in the washbasin.

The maid looked at Mozu like she’d just drooled on herself. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

Mozu glanced at her floury hands, and sheepishly wiped them off on her cooking apron. She gave the girl an embarrassed smile, which wasn’t returned, and went back to her waybread.

Rather, she went back to an empty table, which two boys in butlers’ uniforms were wiping clean. Mozu cast about for her mixing-bowl, before she spotted another maid passing it to the one doing the washing-up.

“Um, um!” She scurried over, and tapped the maid’s shoulder. “I’m real sorry, but I’m still using that bowl, so…”

The maid shook her off with an exaggerated jerk of her shoulder. “Don’t you go getting my uniform dirty.”

“Ah, it’s okay, I just wiped my hands.”

The girl rolled her eyes, and continued scrubbing out Mozu’s bowl. “I know.”

She nudged Mozu to the side, reaching for the tray of bread rolls waiting to go in the oven. Sensing danger, Mozu hastily grabbed the tray; she didn’t really like to argue with people, but even she wasn’t having that.

“Hey, now,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height (still about a head shorter than everyone else in the room). “You don’t have to pretend to like me or anything, but I was ordered to make this bread by the -”

“By the traitor. We know.” The maid washing the dishes tried to shoo her away with a swish of her hand that might have been a wave or a sloppily-aimed clip. She had a sharp, shouty sort of voice that would have been loud enough in any other room, but in the echoey stone-walled kitchen, it hurt to listen to her after a few seconds. “Aye, we’ll just drop everything so you can make her a midnight snack. Never mind the rest of the castle; they can just eat breakfast off the floor tomorrow, and if they ask we’ll have to say, ‘there were no dishes clean because Kamui’s lapdog was using the kitchen to bake.’”

“But it’s not for Lady Kamui. And I don’t need the whole kitchen, just this one tray.” The backs of Mozu’s eyes were starting to sting, but she grit her teeth and gripped the tray tightly, forcing her face and voice steady.

“Aw, let her stay,” said one of the butlers; he’d slung his cleaning-cloth over the crook of his arm, and was stalking over to Mozu. He was smiling at her, but it wasn’t a nice smile - it was the kind of smile you saw on a hunter, when they’d just spotted a plump rabbit. “She’s kind of cute. Like a little mouse. We could keep her around as a mascot.”

He reached out a gloved hand and started patting her head, moving his hand in a rough, tugging motion, as if she was a dog. Mozu ducked out from under his grip, nearly spilling her bread off the tray as she did, but that just made him laugh all the harder.

“Gods, you really do go for anything in a skirt, don’t you, Kirke,” said the other butler, with a wrinkling of his nose. One of the maids made an angry sort of choking sound at that; maybe there _was_ one thing in a skirt this Kirke person hadn’t tried to corner. Although why she’d want him to, Mozu would never know; he just seemed scary to her. Then again, they all did.

“Whatever, just get her out of here,” spat the jilted maid; you could see the little globs of spittle spraying onto the plate she’d just washed. “She’s probably trying to poison the food stores, or something.”

“I-I wasn’t…” Mozu gulped. Sticks and stones, she told herself - but what if they _did_ move on to throwing things? Everybody in this castle hated her already, just for being Lady Kamui’s retainer; if something got broken, they’d probably try to pin it on her. And oh, she was already going to be in so much trouble for not getting that waybread done…

“What _is_ all this?”

The butler nearest Mozu - Kirke - froze up without even looking round. His eyes went wide, and his face turned a sort of greyish colour. The maids turned to the doorway; the noisy one jumped when she saw Jakob standing there, and there was a lot of crashing and splashing as she and her friend (following her lead) dropped the dishes to stand to attention. Only the other butler seemed unimpressed.

“Why’s everyone pissing themselves all of a sudden?” he asked, through a mouth twisted into a confused grimace. Kirke grabbed him by the arm, tightly enough to jab out a muted “Ow.”

“You remember how I used to work at the Northern Fortress before I came here?” he hissed urgently.

His friend raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, so?”

“That guy’s the reason I left.” Kirke watched Jakob stride from the doorway into the room, in the same way a rat in its hidey-hole watches a passing cat.

“Er - evening, Mister Jakob! Didn’t expect to see you here at this hour!” said the loud maid, a bit too brightly; she had a big false smile on, and there was a little twitch under her eye.

“What a coincidence. I didn't expect to see you here either, Mistress Nell,” said Jakob flatly. “By this hour, if memory serves, you’ve usually finished cutting all the corners you can, and abandoned your post in favour of the gin shop.”

The maid’s face turned from grey to purple at that, and her hands balled into fists. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

Her voice was defensively angry, which made it even louder than it was normally; but Jakob either didn’t notice or - more likely - didn’t care. “I’d imagine not, certainly. If the volume of your singing is any indicator, you usually come back from these outings so thoroughly soused that I’m surprised you can remember the way home at all.”

The other maid giggled into her sleeve at that. This was a mistake; Jakob rounded on her next.

“And you, madam,” he began, in a deceptively pleasant tone. “Do we have you to thank for making such light work of tonight’s dishes?”

“Ah! Yes, Mister Jakob!” she nodded, with a grin, which Jakob returned. Well, someone must not have worked with Jakob before. Mozu found a smile stealing over her own face; when Jakob smiled like that, it usually didn’t mean that he was happy. The butlers began to eye the door nervously, but getting to it would have meant going past Jakob; in the end, they seemed to have decided that their best bet was to make themselves as small and quiet as they could.

“Indeed,” he continued. “‘Light’ seems to be the operative word in this instance; looking at these smears of gravy, I’m inclined to wonder whether you rinsed them without scrubbing, or simply waved them vaguely in the direction of the basin without actually putting them in.”

The maid had been nodding proudly as he spoke; when he reached the end of his sentence, she started, and blinked at him. When he spoke again, it was in that voice that always meant a lecture was coming. Mozu actually felt a bit bad for the girl, even if she was kind of snooty.

“Let me ask you something. Suppose you left this gravy to congeal there, until your next meal. What do you suppose would happen?”

The girl shook her head, and swallowed. “Don’t know.”

“Ah, so you admit to being ignorant as well as idle. Your honesty does you credit, if nothing else.” Jakob sniffed. He didn’t raise his voice at all here; he spoke harshly, but with a perfect calmness that was honestly a little scarier than shouting would have been. “Well, this is what would happen. The stain would dry on, and become harder to remove; especially through efforts as feeble as yours. Eventually, the gravy itself would go rotten, and the plate would become a breeding-ground for germs. These viruses would spread amongst the kitchen staff, who would shortly thereafter pass it on to the rest of the household through their food. Eventually, the contagion would reach the king; whereupon he would take to his bed, and be unable to lead the nation through any sudden crises that might arise during his period of convalescence. The city would fall to ruin, all because you felt like shirking your cleaning duties.”

The maid was red-faced now, her lips pressed together in a tight line, and she stared at the floor. Jakob thrust the plate at her.

“Start over,” he commanded. “And do the rest of them again, as well. - properly this time, mark you. Remember that you work in a castle, not a coaching-inn.”

The maid nodded shakily, and dumped the dishes back into the basin. Jakob made a noise like an angry crow, and pointed a stern finger at her. _This_ time he shouted. “With _clean_ water! Gods be good, do none of you have two brain cells to rub together?”

As the maid set about refilling the basin, Jakob turned his attentions to the butlers next. Kirke looked close to tears, and even his friend seemed a bit startled by what was going on. They backed away from Mozu as he drew near, but they didn’t move quickly enough. Jakob clapped Kirke on the shoulder.

“Kirke, is it?” he asked, with a completely unreadable look on his face. The boy nodded, eyes almost completely round with terror.

“It’s a pleasant surprise to see that you’re still working here,” Jakob remarked sweetly. Kirke nodded with a nervous smile, which vanished again when Jakob’s hand lifted from his shoulder to pinch his ear. “Because if I find that you’ve tried to force your attentions on any more hapless women, you _won’t_ be working here. Or indeed anywhere else; not unless the devil needs a butler. Do we understand one another?”

Kirke swallowed so hard you could see the apple in his throat wobbling. “Y-yes, Mister J.”

“Good. And the same goes for anyone who feels like harassing other staff members here, regardless of whom they serve,” he added, in a dangerous whisper for the other butler’s benefit. He turned Kirke loose, sending the boy stumbling backwards into the table. “Now, if you two have no further business here, then you are both dismissed for the evening.”

They didn’t need telling twice.

“And you, Mozu?” Jakob asked, turning to her. He had a strange look on his face; it was almost its usual stiff-lipped mask, but a little thread of concern tugged at his brow. “Have you finished baking the waybread yet?”

He phrased it as a casual question about her work, but Mozu caught the other question that lay between the lines: _did you manage to get it done, or have these people been giving you grief again?_ She held up the tray.

“Just about. I’m just waiting till I can get them into the oven.” She paused, unsure whether or not to talk about what had happened; Jakob would be able to sort it out quickly, but she didn’t want to make these people any angrier with her than they were already. In the end, she decided against it. After all, if she made more trouble for herself here, that in turn would make more trouble for Lady Kamui.

“Let me see.” Jakob went over to inspect them. He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he poked and prodded at each roll. “Well, they look about ready now. Good, uniform shapes, as well.” He turned to her, then. “Although it may not be enough to feed all six of us. Another batch may be in order after all.”

“Six?” News to Mozu; she'd expected it to just be her, Jakob, Lady Kamui and King Leo.

Jakob wrinkled his nose. “Lord Leo just sprang it on me that he means for two of his retainers to accompany us on tomorrow’s venture. Gods only know why; I can’t imagine how anyone would manage to stay sane with that Niles lout dripping poison into their ears for the entirety of a three-day journey.”

“Um.” The maid who had apparently almost poisoned King Leo looked up from drying the dishes. “Oughtn’t you to say ‘His Grace’? Not ‘Lord Leo’?”

Her jaw was set like a steel trap as she locked eyes with Jakob; her face was still red with humiliation, and now that she'd caught Jakob out, she wasn’t going to let this slip-up pass her by. But Jakob just snorted. “No, _you_ ought to say ‘His Grace’. _I_ have known Lord Leo for well over fifteen years, having served his family longer than any of his personal retainers. Indeed Mozu and I are working here tonight at his direct request. If he had taken offence at my addressing him as Lord Leo, he would have told me so himself.”

The other maid, the one who had thrown a fit about Mozu baking for Lady Kamui, went a bit quiet at that. She folded her dishcloth and left it by the sink, and grabbed her friend by the arm.

“If that bread’s for the king, we’ll get out your road, then,” she mumbled, as they passed Jakob on their way out.

“I think you better had, yes.” Jakob rolled his eyes when the door groaned shut behind them. “Gods, at last. If there’s one thing I didn’t miss about being stationed in Windmire, it’s being the only halfway-competent person in the workforce.” He actually paused, then. “Present company excluded, I suppose; you’ve never poisoned anyone yet, at least.”

Mozu chose to take that as he’d meant it.

While she slipped the tray of waybread into the oven, Jakob took her bowl from the draining-board, and set about mixing up another batch. All traces of Mozu’s half-mixed waybread had been properly scrubbed away now; it was a crying shame that the ingredients had gone to waste, but at least the king wouldn’t drop dead over a stray puff of flour now, as he might’ve done if Jakob was to be believed. “In any case, I assume they’re the reason you made so little headway on your own chores.”

Mozu flinched at that, and slammed the oven door shut a lot harder than she’d meant to. Jakob shook his head with a sigh. “As expected.”

“They weren’t, they weren’t! Really, they weren’t,” said Mozu quickly; maybe just a bit _too_ quickly.

Jakob sniffed. “Then what was all that cowering in the corner in aid of?”

“It’s not important,” Mozu insisted. “You can’t really blame them, anyway. I mean, we killed a lot of people that day. They probably lost -”

“You can’t blame them for _privately_ resenting us, certainly,” Jakob interrupted. His face was still calm, but Mozu guessed he was pretty upset about this; he was really giving that dough a thrashing, and it wasn’t even at the kneading stage yet. “However, actively obstructing you from doing your job, while they themselves are still on duty, is highly unprofessional; and more to the point, it goes against the very principles of what it is to be a butler.”

Mozu blinked at him. “Come again?”

Jakob sighed. “A butler’s duty - his very raison d’être - is to serve his liege, and their household. If Lady Kamui is here as a guest of Lord Leo’s, then they are honour-bound to see that she has whatever she needs, regardless of their personal feelings towards her. No ifs, no buts.”

“Oh. Makes sense,” said Mozu; then realised it didn’t. “But wait, you’re rude to Lady Kamui’s friends all the time.”

“Yes, because Lady Kamui is virtually bloody indiscriminate in who she chooses to consider a friend,” Jakob admitted. “But that’s the point: the worst act of insubordination I ever show to them is discourtesy. I still serve them when asked, as long as their requests run compliant with Lady Kamui’s wishes.”

“Even if you make it really obvious that you’re only helping them because she made you,” Mozu grinned.

“Precisely. As evidenced by my risking life and limb so that dreadful brother of hers could practice his ridiculous trick archery moves. With all the gods as my witness, I never did see him use any of what he practiced with me on the field,” Jakob grumbled. “But that’s beside the point. The point is that if these people cannot respect the wishes of their king, then they are unqualified to serve in his castle.”

“Well, gee,” Mozu grimaced; that was a bit harsh, she thought. “You ever think that maybe you’re just more serious about being a butler than most people are?”

Jakob looked at her like her head had just fallen off.

“I’m sorry, I just mean - you and me, we do what Lady Kamui wants because we love her, right?” Mozu explained quickly. “That’s how it was back in my village as well: if you didn’t have a field of your own, you’d go work in someone else’s, and then they’d look out for you come harvest time. But out in the city, most folks don’t get on that well with their bosses. Most folks just do whatever work they can find, to keep their bellies full.”

Jakob stopped mixing for a moment. It was something Mozu had wondered about pretty often: before he’d come to work for Lady Kamui, Jakob had been a fancy nobleman himself. Because of that, Mozu had never been sure if he understood how different his life was to most other servants’; if he would still be as tough on the people working under him, if he knew how many things they had to worry about outside the castle’s walls.

“Well, I’d imagine that would be even less reason to harass you,” he said, finally. “They’ve no way of knowing your reason for serving Lady Kamui, after all. For all they know, you simply took the first opportunity that was on offer, just as they did.”

“I guess.” Mozu sighed, then. “And… like I said, I get why they feel the way they do, but I wish they’d give Lady Kamui a break, or just stop going on about her. It feels like nobody in this castle’s done nothing but talk bad about her ever since we got here.”

“‘Anything’, not ‘nothing’,” corrected Jakob. He had finished mixing the dough, and was now kneading it, more quickly and expertly than Mozu had; he’d been making bread for Lady Kamui all his life, after all. “And unfortunately, that’s just another respect in which we must abide by Lady Kamui’s wishes. She knew what she was doing for her reputation here when she chose to side with Hoshido; she endures the consequences of her choice with stoicism, and so must we.”

“But she doesn’t,” Mozu pointed out. “She doesn't let people see it, but it does hurt her when she sees how many people don’t like her. That’s why she keeps going out to the underground - she wants to try and make things better for everyone down there, because she feels like all of it’s her mess to clean up. Even the stuff that isn’t.”

“You’re preaching to the converted here,” Jakob nodded. “I’ve served her longer than you have, remember; I can recognise her moods as well as you. But she also knows that there is little else she can do about what’s happened, save to weather the people’s contempt until it blows over; assuming it ever does.”

“Well, I hope it does,” mumbled Mozu. A happier thought occurred to her, then; one that had kept coming back to her since she’d seen Lady Kamui blush and stammer her way through that conversation at the tea table after Master Shigure’s piano lesson, a good couple of weeks ago. “I get the feeling she’ll be spending a lot of time here in the future, after all.”

“Indeed.” Jakob had finished kneading the dough, but he kept talking as he moved it to the pantry to prove. “It would be inconvenient for everyone involved if she didn’t feel welcome to visit Master Shigure here.”

“Well, there’s that, but…” Mozu realised, too late, that Jakob probably wasn’t the best person to go to for girl talk. But Felicia was gone, and she couldn’t really talk to Lady Kamui about this, and she felt like she would just _burst_ if she kept it to herself; so Jakob it had to be. “Jakob… d’you reckon maybe she’d ever decide to… live here? All the time? I mean… if she was to, I don’t know, find someone she wanted to -”

“Mozu,” said Jakob sharply. “This conversation had better not be headed in the direction I think it’s headed in.”

Mozu sighed. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“I should think so, too. It isn’t seemly to gossip about one’s betters.” Jakob tutted, and shook his head. “It’s no concern of ours that he’s been mooning over her since they were thirteen.”

Mozu’s jaw dropped; she yanked it back up again into a grin. “You mean it?”

“As I said, I’ve served our lady longer than you have; and I served her family, too, when they came to call. Lady Kamui is not the only one whose moods I have come to recognise by sight.” Jakob didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth did that little twitch that always meant that he was laughing inside. “But we shall speak no more of it; as I said, it isn’t respectful.”

Mozu couldn’t help giggling. “She’d be such a good queen, though, wouldn't she? And a really beautiful one, too!”

“What did I just say?” said Jakob sternly. Mozu pulled herself together with a quick nod.

“Right, right. Don’t want to jinx it, do we?” She went over to the oven, to check on the waybread; the rolls were still a pale grey, but the crusts were starting to turn crisp. “Ah, thanks, Jakob. I haven’t been able to jaw with anyone about this kind of stuff since Felicia went home.”

“I’d imagine not. Do you hear much from her?”

Mozu stared at him for a moment. “Are you… making small talk?”

“I’m allowed,” said Jakob primly. He had his strict face on again, but it was the exaggerated version; the one he used when he wanted to hide the fact that he was actually worried about you.

Mozu laughed again at that. “Well, we’ve been writing each other. I did ask her if she’d be okay with us stopping by on the way over to Dia, but she hasn’t replied…”

They talked and talked, well into the wee hours of the morning, as they waited for the bread to be ready; about Felicia, and all the scrapes she’d gotten into; about how well Master Shigure was doing in his lessons; about Kaze, and how brave it was of him to come live here for his son. By the time the second batch was out of the oven, and all the rolls were wrapped and packed for tomorrow’s journey, Mozu had almost forgotten about everything she'd dealt with earlier this evening.

“In any case, it should get easier for him once we’ve procured that warp book -”

“Hey, Jakob?” Mozu interrupted, in a voice thick with choked-back yawns. “You’re a good friend, you know that?”

Jakob made a disgusted sound. “Mozu, if you’re going to slander me like that, I shall complain of you to Lady Kamui.”

Mozu chuckled sleepily. “That’s fair. And then I’ll tell her what you were saying about King Leo…”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Jakob snapped. “Now, to bed with you; you’ve tormented me long enough, and you’ll be of no use to anyone tomorrow if you’re asleep in the saddle.”

“Okay, sure. G’night, Jakob,” Mozu grinned. He _was_ a good friend, even if he liked to pretend that he wasn’t. The two of them made a good team, too; together, she knew, they could heal whatever was hurting their Lady Kamui.

 

* * *

 

Kamui’s legs were starting to ache already, and they’d only been on the road for one day.

To be fair, the terrain they covered here was a good deal wilder than the king’s-road. The moors that lay between Windmire and the Woods of the Forlorn were a perilous labyrinth of jagged black rocks even in summer; in winter, with the crags mantled in patches of grey snow and laced with silvery trails of frost, it was difficult to see what was stone and what was ice until you were actually picking your way over it. It seemed they’d be at this for a good few hours more, as well: towards the end of the day, Kamui had begun to make out the Woods of the Forlorn in the distance, but it was still too far away to see as anything sharper than a cloud of black mist circling the hills ahead.

Saddle-sore or not, that suited Kamui just fine. She hadn’t travelled in a large group like this since the war, and hadn’t realised just how much she’d missed that unique feeling of camaraderie that comes with making a long journey with one’s friends: the communal sharing of snacks, and of banter; the conversations that sprang up around the odd landmarks they passed; sometimes, if anybody was in a whimsical enough mood to strike one up, the occasional walking-song.

When they’d set out, Kamui and Leo had ridden at the heart of their formation, with Leo’s retainers ahead and hers behind; but after their first stop to pick the snow from their horses’ hooves, she and Leo had moved, quite by accident, to the fore. The others seemed to have fallen a few feet further behind them, after that; Kamui supposed it was just the difference in their horses’ gaits. Either way, riding alongside Leo had given her a classic opportunity to enjoy what had become her other favourite way to pass the time on a long ride: watching him try, and fail, to negotiate the uneven terrain without sacrificing his kingly posture.

“You look like a jack-in-the-box,” she remarked sweetly. Leo turned to her, and might have flashed a brief grin; it was difficult to see clearly with his head bobbing about so much.

“Bold words for a duck in its down-feathers,” he countered, without missing a beat.

“I’ll take it. At least ducks are cute,” Kamui shrugged; then, remembering another bout they’d had like this, added, “And delicious.”

Leo turned away at that, becoming suddenly very interested in Nosferatu’s ear, but this time Kamui caught a trace of the grin sketched into his profile. After a few seconds’ pause, during which his shoulders seemed to be shaking even more than they had been before, he spoke again. “A dashing riposte, but I’m not sure your edibility is something you want to be announcing so loudly out here.”

Somewhere in the distance, a low howl sounded.

“Case in point,” said Leo drily, lips pressed into that typical smirk of his; a wicked twist of a grin that lit up his entire face. Kamui had always assumed that the lurch her stomach gave, whenever he deployed it, was annoyance at his teasing; but now, of course, she knew better. She turned from him with a sigh, praying that the fading sunlight was dim enough to mask the flush she could feel stealing over her face and ears. As such, she couldn’t see Leo’s expression, but there was rue in his voice when he spoke again.

“Did I go too dark? I’m sorry.”

“N-no, you’re fine, I just…” Kamui winced internally as she forced herself to smile back at him; the smirk had been sheathed for another day, but the way he looked at her now, his dark eyes wide with concern, was more dangerous still. “I’m just overtired, I guess. I’m still not used to riding over such long distances.”

Leo did not smile again, but he visibly relaxed at that, his head falling forward slightly as his shoulders loosened. Had he really been that worried over so small a thing? Kamui buried her face in Éowyn’s mane, until she could wrestle down another fond laugh. That Leo; he was such a tease, but there was no-one kinder.

“We probably should make camp soon, at any rate,” he said, casting a hand towards the sky. The new moon wasn’t quite into its first quarter yet, and the watery veneer of light it cast wasn’t much of a supplement to their own night vision. “Travelling cross-country at this time of day is fair enough, but the Woods of the Forlorn can be a rather… festive place to visit after dark; especially for a party with only two mages in its ranks. So I’d avoid them until sunrise.”

“Oh, I actually had an idea about that,” put in Kamui. “Fort Dragonfall’s somewhere around these parts, right? We could probably bunk there for the night.”

“Theoretically we could,” Leo agreed dubiously. “But all operations at the fort were shut down after Iago was blockheaded enough to use necromancy on it.” His nose wrinkled, then. “Very ugly business; I went to inspect the place myself after the war, and there were _still_ dribbles of gastric acid running down the walls. Took Niles all week to get the vomit-smell out of my coat.”

“It was pretty horrifying, yeah,” Kamui concurred darkly.

Leo’s jaw dropped. “You were there?”

“Leo, that’s why he cast the spell in the first place. We’d just come out of the woods after meeting with you.” A horrible thought occurred to Kamui, then. “The poor dragon, though! Imagine waking up and finding someone had carved a fortress out of you -”

“I’d rather not imagine it, thanks!” said Leo hastily, waving a frantic hand at her. “It’s all disgusting enough already. But I suppose it would save us the bother of setting up a campsite ourselves - assuming the fort hasn’t been claimed by one bandit gang or another since then.”

“Hey, what’s a handful of bandits? We’ve gone toe-to-toe with a god, and made it home in one piece,” said Kamui airily.

“Speak for yourself,” Leo sniffed; but his face fell as soon as he’d said it. “Wait, sorry, I…”

“No, I’m sorry. How’s the knee holding up, anyway?”

Leo stared at her for a long moment; then turned away with a strange, bitter laugh. “Better.”

An uncomfortable silence descended. Kamui cast about for something she could say to fill it - _I really am sorry; we should reach the fort soon; I love you_. Fortunately, her mouth was rescued from any further contact with her foot by their retainers, although probably not intentionally.

“Niles, this is your last warning. I fancy myself a patient man, but -”

“Ooh. Which one?” Niles drawled, then gasped theatrically. “Is it me?”

Kamui sighed, and turned awkwardly in the saddle to look behind. Too late she was reminded why she and Leo had positioned themselves between their respective retainers when they’d first left Windmire: left to their own devices, it seemed Niles was needling Jakob again. Leo had warned them that Niles liked to haze new coworkers for his first couple of weeks with them, but he had kept at it in Jakob’s case after almost three. Kamui supposed he just thought Jakob’s reactions were particularly funny: she’d missed most of the conversation, but the butler’s face was flushed with fury, his voice raised half an octave higher than its natural pitch. Niles was just grinning like the cat that swallowed the pigeon. Mozu rode close behind them, trying to calm things down as best she could without agitating her pony, but her efforts seemed to be going largely ignored.

“Um, will you guys please stop? You’re making the horses skittish.”

“You heard the lady, Niles,” said Jakob curtly. “Stop harassing me.”

“Hey, all I did was ask if you were holding up okay,” Niles shrugged. “ _You’re_ the one getting your smallclothes into a twist over everything I say.”

“Because everything you say is a blatant innuendo!” Jakob retorted.

Niles chuckled. “Hey, the way I see it, these things are only suggestive if you’re open to suggestions…”

Jakob’s mouth fell open, and he began to bluster again, but this time it was Odin who cut him off.

“Alas, my brethren, it seems your epic duel of tongues is doomed to end with no clear victor! We must disband it here, for we move under the watchful eye of the Grey Pilgrim -”

“Don’t _you_ start saucing me now, Odin,” snapped Jakob. Odin blinked at him like a wounded puppy.

“Heh, ‘duel of tongues’,” snickered Niles. Jakob rounded on him, looking ready to kill.

Mozu steered her horse as far forward as she could, pushing between theirs, and poked them both neatly in the ribs. “No, he’s right, you big lugs. Look, Lady Kamui’s watching us.”

They both whirled round, eyes wide as they saw Kamui looking back at them. Mozu whispered something Kamui was too far away to hear; the rivals nodded grimly to each other, before turning back to wave at their lieges with identical forced smiles.

“Everything okay back there?” Kamui called.

“Of course, milady!” said Jakob, very quickly.

“We’ll call it a night in about another hour,” Leo announced. “Think you can manage not to kill each other before then?”

“I’ll not sully Lady Kamui’s reputation by rashly making promises I can’t keep,” said Jakob darkly.

“Don’t worry about us, milord. It’s been a long ride, and some of us just aren’t used to getting our backsides pounded like this -”

“ _Niles!_ ”

Leo sighed, and turned in the saddle. “Look, if you two can’t talk without getting each other’s hackles up, I’ll have to ask you both to just avoid saying anything to each other until we make camp.”

“Gladly, milord,” said Jakob, turning his head from Niles with a pronounced _hmph_.

“Maybe we should go back to riding between them,” suggested Kamui.

“Ah - that won’t be necessary, milady! See here, I’ll switch places with Odin,” said Jakob, rather hurriedly. Kamui cocked her head at Leo, asking without words if he had any idea what that was about; he answered with a baffled shrug.

As it turned out, though, this did little to resolve the situation; the two men couldn’t bicker openly anymore, but now they waged another battle in their minds, fought with seething but unspoken thoughts of ill will that came out to hang as a dark cloud over the entire party.

Another oppressive silence descended.

“Well, that was a better idea in my head,” Leo admitted, in a muttered aside to Kamui.

“Er - let’s have another song!” Kamui piped up hastily; then began, in a voice made slightly tuneless by her nerves, “ _Martin said to his man, ‘Fie, man, fie!’_ ”

Mozu and Odin joined in immediately, and even Leo nodded his head along to it gratefully. “ _Martin said to his man, ‘Who’s the fool now?’_ ”

“ _Martin said to his man, ‘Come on, Jakob, you do the best Martin voice,’_ ” sang Kamui, scrunching up the words to fit the song’s melody.

There was a defeated groan from behind her, and two more voices begrudgingly joined the chorus. “‘ _Thou hast well drunken, man; who’s the fool now?’_ ”

The mood of the party gradually began to lift again. It was difficult to stay grumpy while shouting about mice chasing cats and cheese eating rats (particularly when your companions were delivering these lines as dramatically as Odin did). They kept Martin’s calls for cup and can going for the rest of that last stretch southwards: it was a song everyone knew, and the verses were composed in such a way that you could repeat them as often as you liked. Eventually, Kamui let the others continue the song without her, and turned back to Leo.

“We should be getting close to the fort now, right?” she gasped, a little breathless from singing. Leo was looking at her a little oddly, she noticed then, with one corner of his mouth quirked up into a puzzled sort of half-smile; he blinked at her a moment, then nodded quickly.

“Ah - yes, it should be… actually, it should be directly ahead of us.” Leo frowned.

“Huh. Maybe we veered too far west without realising?” Kamui suggested. Leo still looked a little dubious, but he nodded slowly.

“That must be it, yes. Strange, though; I could have sworn I passed that crag on my way there the last time.”

Kamui leaned sideways in the saddle to pat his shoulder. “You must be overtired. We’ll turn east from here, and keep going until we reach the fort.”

They turned their horses; behind them, Niles was starting up the next verse of the song, with a set of accompanying gestures that even had Jakob laughing, albeit very begrudgingly. “ _I saw a maid milk a bull, ‘Fie, man, fie!’_ ”

“Well, at least they’re not fighting anymore,” Leo remarked with some relief.

“Never underestimate the power of a Nohrian drinking song,” said Kamui, with what was almost a straight face; then, raising her voice to carry over Odin’s enthusiastic shouts of _fie, man, fie!_ : “East from here, folks. We’ll make camp at Fort Dragonfall.”

 

* * *

 

“And you can’t see any sign of the fort either?”

Leo shook his head. Kamui sighed. “Weird. Just how far west did we stray?”

“Well, we never came upon Loch Blackwater, so probably not _that_ far. And I’m fairly sure that ridge on the horizon is Mount Frostfall,” said Leo, pointing out a silvery watermark painted onto the dark skyline, just beyond the shadow of the woods. “Honestly, we may actually be closer to Macarath now than we would have been if we’d stayed in the fort tonight.”

He was obviously trying to sound strictly practical, but there was a note of hope to his voice that he hadn’t quite managed to suppress. Kamui just barely managed to smooth her laughter into an optimistic smile.

“Well, that works out rather well for us. Should we just set up camp here, then?”

“That might be sensible,” Leo agreed, just a little too quickly, in a voice heavy with barely-repressed relief. “Er - it wouldn’t be fair to push the horses any farther tonight, after all.”

It was a fair point, regardless of his true motive for making it. It had been a while since Kamui had last checked Éowyn’s hooves for snowballs, and her bit was probably getting cold again. She nodded to Leo, and dismounted.

Which is to say, she fell sideways into the snow, face first.

Kamui heard, rather than saw Leo snort as his own feet crunched down after her. “Gods, what happened to your legs? It’s like they froze around the saddle.”

“That is probably exactly what happened, yes,” Kamui huffed, as she sat up. This took some doing: her legs were still fast asleep under her, splayed out at odd angles like a newt’s. The entire right side of her haori was caked in powder now, and a thick pad of the stuff had formed on the palm of her glove; she thanked all the gods that she’d worn her armour for this journey, rather than something more absorbent. “Ha, they’re completely numb.”

“That’s what comes of not wearing boots,” said Leo; the smirk was out again in full force. Gods, he was insufferable when he was right. “If your extremities freeze over, so does the rest of you.”

“Hey, I’m wearing socks,” Kamui pointed out; she lifted a foot and tried to wiggle her toes in her dragon socks, but her toes were too numb for her to tell whether they were actually moving or not. Leo laughed again, but this laugh was different to the first; it was quieter - gentler, almost - and the smirk had softened into a faint smile. Not for the first or last time, Kamui found herself wishing desperately that she could go back to loving him fraternally, the way she’d always believed she did. That she could look at that smile and see only her dear little brother; and not a man with a noble heart, and a ready wit, and a face that was not so much handsome as beautiful, for whom she had only come to realise that she had fallen once she was too deeply mired to ever pull herself back up.

“Here.” Leo ducked down - bending at the knee, rather than the waist, much to Kamui’s relief: it really must be doing better after all - and extended his left arm awkwardly to her. Kamui stared at it, then at him. Leo looked askance, his face and ears colouring slightly. “Er - that is, if you want the help; I don’t doubt you could manage on your own.”

In that moment, Kamui came to a resolution. Her hand balled into a fist at her side.

“Thank you, Leo,” she said simply, leaning upwards to accept his arm. She wasn’t sure if he’d only meant to offer his hand, but she slipped her own arm around his shoulders instead, her hand resting at the back of his neck, using him as a brace to haul herself to her feet. Leo’s eyes widened at that, but he went along with it, shifting his hand to support her at the waist as she stumbled to her feet. His hold was light, and a little stiff, but she relished the feel of it just the same.

It was all she could do about any of this, Kamui had decided. If she could never act on her feelings for Leo, nor ever be rid of them, then she would just have to love him after the fashion of a knight in a chivalric romance: take joy, where she could find it, from the very emotion itself - from the rare privilege of having found someone she _could_ love that deeply. Kamui had experienced a love so natural, so enduring, that she had gone for almost twenty years without even thinking about it hard enough to notice it; who else could honestly say that? These feelings were certainly unexpected, and inappropriate perhaps, but as long as she handled them in a chaste and respectful enough way, then maybe they could also be beautiful.

Of course, this depended entirely on her being able to hide all this from Leo: he hadn’t exactly read many romances, and she rather doubted he was familiar enough with this unspoken, sexless love she had chosen to live by, to understand that she wouldn’t let it be anything more sinister than that. Besides, committing to a courtly love for Leo did not grant him diplomatic immunity from her usual teasing. With all of that in mind, Kamui opened her fist.

Leo recoiled from her with a strangled squeak, and set about frantically digging the handful of snow out of his collar. He glared at Kamui, utter betrayal etched into his face.

“I’m sorry!” she cried, although the way she choked out the words between snickering fits probably made them less believable. “I just, I can’t believe you left yourself open to that…”

“I know. As a tactician, I really should have seen that coming,” said Leo flatly; but then a wicked star sparked in his eyes. The smirk didn’t make a full appearance, but it was definitely waiting in the wings as he unbuckled Brynhildr from his saddle. “But as a seasoned general,” he continued primly, “ _you_ really should have seen _this_ coming.”

He muttered something under his breath. There was a flash of violet light.

The earth behind Kamui reared up over her, like a great wave in the moments before it capsized a ship, and dumped several feet of snow onto her head.

“Ugh, _Leo!_ ” Kamui laughed again; she shook herself off like a wet dog, spraying him with a last shower of snowflakes, and declared them even.

“What’s all this?” Their retainers had caught up to them now; Niles was eyeing the scene from under a raised eyebrow.

“Just clearing a campsite,” said Leo smoothly, indicating the half-circle of bare stone where the snow had been neatly shaken off (onto Kamui). He drew up more of the earth around the perimeter, and twisted it together to form a sort of cave.

Jakob stared at it for a moment. “Well. I’ll just go and tell the tents that they’ve been dismissed.”

Once Kamui and Leo had seen the horses de-tacked and left to shelter in a second cave, and once Odin had coaxed a fire into being, the rest of the evening was passed in good spirits. They supped on waybread and salted bear meat; at one point Kamui found a bag of comfits in her haori pocket that she’d forgotten she had, and there was much rejoicing. They were making very good time: by Leo’s guess, they would reach Macarath by late afternoon tomorrow. If they managed to find a seller who dealt in warp books there, they could meet with the Sage the following morning, and be home in time for lunch. Perhaps they could still visit Felicia, as well. She hadn’t replied to Mozu’s letter, but there was no telling whether that meant they were to stay away, or just that her owl had got lost again.

When everyone had eaten their fill, they lay about the cavern in that comfortable state of drowsiness that comes with a full stomach. Well, all except for Leo - he had gone to the cave’s mouth to take the first watch. Kamui and Mozu sat together in front of the fire with their legs cocooned in their bedrolls, both of them braced against each other as they drifted in and out of sleep. Jakob and Niles had set up a game of cipher that Leo had made them swear they would keep civil. Odin had struck up another chorus of _Martin Said_ , which the others occasionally chimed in with. “ _Well, I saw the hare chase the hound_ …”

“ _‘Who’s the fool now?’_ ” Kamui mumbled sleepily.

“ _I saw the hare chase the hound, twenty feet above the ground!_ ” Odin cried, rather than sang with line, with a skyward flourish.

“ _‘Thou hast well drunken, man; who’s the -’_ ’

A loud roar ripped through the air outside.

Kamui blinked, and sat up, dislodging a drowsing Mozu from her shoulder in the process. “What was that?!”

“Umm.” Mozu rubbed her eyes blearily. “J-just a wyvern, I think…”

“Most likely,” Jakob concurred, looking up from the game. Niles seized the opportunity to switch the positions of a few of his cards. “There’s like to be more of them around these parts. They tend to congregate around Mount Frostfall. We should be safe enough in here, at any rate; although Lord Leo probably ought to come inside.”

Kamui frowned at that. She’d heard wyverns before, and this wasn’t quite the same as a wyvern’s cry - similar, certainly, but louder and deeper; less shrill, and more mournful. No, she’d heard this sound before; although the first time, it had rang a good deal louder in her ears. It was the sound that had welled in her own throat, when she had gone feral that first time. But what would be making it this time? The only dragons left in the world were herself, the Rainbow Sage, and…

A horrible realisation struck Kamui. She had wondered what Anankos’s next move would be; it seemed so obvious, now, that he’d fall back on the one thing he was most practiced at.

He’d taken control of another corpse.

She got to her feet as calmly as she could. “Good point, Jakob. I’ll go make sure that he does.”

At any rate, the others seemed unfazed by it. But of course they would be: none of them had been present the first time Kamui had transformed. As far as they were concerned, a wyvern was all it could possibly be.

The roar sounded again as she left the warmth of the camp. Kamui shuddered at the sound of it. Under her armour, her dragonstone began to pulse.

Leo was standing outside when she reached the cave’s mouth, his head craned up to squint at the empty sky. Brynhildr lay waiting in the crook of his arm.

“You heard it too?” she asked; then shook her head. “Sorry, stupid question, I know.”

Leo’s head turned to face her, but his eyes did not; his gaze remained fixed on the heavens, as if he feared that they would swoop down and attack him if he took his eyes off them. “No, I understood your meaning. You recognised it as well, didn’t you? A dragon’s cry.”

Kamui gaped at him. “You’ve heard it before?”

“Only in dreams. I assume that’s where you know it from, as well?”

“Oh.” Kamui’s heart sank; for one brief, beautiful moment, she had dared to hope that perhaps his internal struggles were more like her own than he’d let on. “Er. Yes, of course.”

“It’s the blood, I suppose. At least it’s still good for something.” Leo sighed, and looked down at her. “At any rate, the sky looks empty.”

He did not say it as a reassurance. The landscape around them was shrouded heavily in snow and ice; with the soil below that, and the labyrinth of twisted trees looming straight ahead of them, they were surrounded by perfect hiding-places for a creature who travelled through water.

Kamui nodded, and unsheathed the broken Yato. She hadn’t had long enough to completely adjust to wielding it as a dagger, but Jakob had taught her the basics of knife-work over the past couple of weeks. Leo opened Brynhildr, and they ventured a few dubious paces farther out.

The moors were eerily silent, save for the crunch of snow underfoot, and the nervous champing of the horses in their erstwhile stable. In a way, that almost felt more sinister than if there had been a wind to set the pines on the height roaring, or a full moon to conduct a chorus of hungry dire-wolves echoing throughout the crags around them. As it was, it felt like the world was holding its breath; like the calm before a storm, like the night before every battle Kamui had ever fought.

“Leo, you’re the tactician. What do we do?” Kamui whispered; the words sounded thunderously loud moving through the stillness of the air.

“You’re the general,” Leo pointed out.

“You’re the king.” And now he was in check.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Leo grimly. “He could be anywhere - under our feet, watching us from the woods… making his way to Windmire, now that he knows we’ve left the city. He could have made a permanent vessel of this new body, for all we know.”

Dread gripped Kamui, icier than the wintry night air clawing at her face now. She had seen first-hand what a feral dragon could do to a city.

“There’s no way to check if he’s nearby? What would happen if you… I don’t know, melted the snow with fire magic?”

“Nothing. The water would just seep into the soil.” Leo paused, then. “I could shock him out, if we had a Thunder tome. But we don’t.”

“So we just… wait for him to come to us.” Kamui’s fingers tightened on the Yato’s hilt. They kept walking, treading carefully in the knowledge that each step could place Anankos directly beneath their feet. A light snow had begun to fall, but apart from that, the world remained icily still.

Something hard and jagged dug into Kamui’s heel; she sprang back, to find only a lump of crumbled stone.

“Just a rock,” she sighed; but Leo frowned, and dropped to his knees. He ran his hand along the ground, dusting away the snow. Underneath was a long, cracked slab, made up of dozens of stones packed together, embedded in the earth: the foundations of a wall.

“I think we found Fort Dragonfall,” said Leo grimly.

The roar sounded again. It still sounded close by, though it seemed to be coming from all directions at once. That was oddly comforting, in a way: if Anankos’s attentions were still focussed on Kamui and Leo, at least he didn’t mean to target civilians. Not until after he’d dealt with the two of them, anyway.

Kamui shivered; both from nerves and from the cold. Something small and hard dropped onto the top of her head.

“And now it’s hailing,” she sighed. “Lovely.”

Leo blinked at her. “No it isn’t.”

He gestured at the air around them: still empty, save for a slow fall of tiny snowflakes. Kamui frowned.

“But then what’s - ah!” Another hailstone struck her then; this time she slammed her hand over it, clapping it to her head before it could fall. Kamui’s stomach gave a lurch when she looked at it. It was a good deal larger than a hailstone, and also a good deal less round.

“Kamui?”

Wordlessly, Kamui lifted the projectile up to the light. A chip of black stone, about the size of a human tooth, that was a near match for the stones used in the foundations of Fort Dragonfall.

Even in the dark, she could see the colour drain from Leo’s face. He lifted his gaze, again, to the starless sky. Rather, to the clouds that obscured the stars from view: a vast body of water, suspended over the entire world.

More stones fell. Kamui and Leo both took a few instinctive steps back; but what use would a retreat be? Where would they even retreat _to_? In the pouch under her arming-doublet, Kamui’s dragonstone drummed out a battle march. She stood, and watched, and waited. No wind stirred the air, but the snow swirled in the sky in a shifting cloud: an inverse murmuration, white on black. The snowflakes twisted and turned together, in a spiralling knot, all while spitting more and more fragments of crumbled stone to the ground.

Leo had readied a spell, and was directing it towards the snow-cloud, when finally it split apart. A snout pushed its way out, a little awkwardly, like Odin’s parcel of waybread being pulled from his bag of holding. It drew back into the water for a moment; then, with a last deafening roar, the dragon tore free to bear down upon them from above.

Fort Dragonfall was smaller than Anankos, but only in the same way that a hill is smaller than a mountain. Its torso had been large enough to use as a keep; towers and ballistae poked out of its limbs and head. Some of its muscles had been preserved (Kamui herself had seen them closer than she’d have liked, the last time she was here), but the bulk of its frame was held together with the steel and stone Leo’s ancestors had used to fortify it in the centuries following its death. Cracks in the stonework had formed along its joints, but the unbroken walls formed plates of armour over its head and back. A pair of blazing vermillion lights glowed within its empty eye sockets.

The Yato was starting to feel less and less like a viable weapon.

Leo cast again, and again, tearing up chunks of the earth and launching them at the dragon. Both hit their mark, and bounced uselessly off it. The dragon roared again, the stone around its jaw shedding slag as its maw stretched wide, exposing a mouthful of fire orbs where there should have been teeth. The dragon turned in the air, in a graceful, serpentine motion, to barrel down into them.

Kamui ought to have felt panic in that moment; but all she felt was a strange, visceral sense of aggression. This was _her_ world; these were _her_ humans. Anankos would not take them from her; especially not by stooping so low as to wear the skin of another dragon. Her hand was on her heart before she had time to even register that she had dropped the Yato. A swirl of light swept up around her, an aurora the colour of a Hoshidan sky. Energy crackled and danced through her veins, her every sense sharpened. Her limbs ached pleasantly, as they would after a hard day’s training, as her muscles stretched to accommodate the sudden growth and rearrangement of her bones. Kamui relished the triumphant vibration in her throat, as the dragon’s call sounded for what would be the last time that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild dragon!Kamui appeared (FINALLY)!
> 
> \- Mozu’s accent is difficult to pin down a lot of the time, because I find that, where Donnel’s manner of speaking was basically just “generic cowboy talk”, Mozu’s seems to kind of waver between various rural dialects from both America and Britain. In the Japanese version, she just spoke in the Kansai dialect (which, funnily enough, I believe Donnel didn’t), and in the fan-translation that came out before the western release she spoke with a more consistent Cornwall accent. Being a yokel myself, I like that Treehouse chose to avoid the “all rural folks are cowboys” stereotype with Mozu, but it makes deciding which dialect phrases to use a bit tricky, haha.
> 
> \- I wasn’t able to find any reliable sources on when the common wheat used for flour as we know it first came into being, so I figured it was safest to just assume Nohrian wheat is spelt (plus it matches that whole Roman empire aesthetic they have going on). [The recipe Mozu follows here](https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/kates-roman-spelt-bread/) is admittedly taken from Bake-Off (although I wouldn’t recommend watching the season it’s from; Mel and Sue aren’t in it anymore so what is even the point), but the ingredients do check out as period-accurate, so if you feel like trying it yourself you’ll end up producing something fairly close to how I imagine waybread probably!
> 
> \- Mozu has one of my favourite supports with Nyx in the entire game, just because it’s one of the precious few where Nyx’s curse never comes up at all. It’s just such a complete non-issue to Mozu that she never so much as remarks upon it; that’s how down-to-earth and non-judgemental Mozu is. Mozu is the Samwise of Fire Emblem Fates, and has never done anything wrong in her life ever. Protect her.
> 
> \- I once had a very large cat, who liked watching me play Dragon Age.
> 
> \- “Martin Said”/“Who’s the Fool Now?” is a medieval drinking song from… some part of Britain? I’d always heard it was a medieval Scottish song, and most sources I was able to find say that as well; but apparently there are several other regional variations of the song, so now I'm not sure where it actually originated from. The version I had Kamui’s party singing is the one Heather Dale uses, because you can never go wrong with Heather Dale; but I swear to all the gods and valkyries that the verse about the bull was a real, legit, not-made-up-by-Majou lyric in MULTIPLE versions of the song (it gets better, in fact: the next line is “with every stroke, a bucketful!”).
> 
> \- Mount Frostfall is the mountain where the Ice Tribe village is situated. We'll be seeing more of it later. There’s no deep meaning behind the name; I just like Skyrim haha.
> 
> \- Blushy flustered Kamui will be back eventually, don't worry! I’m sorry to cut her ride on the angst train short, but after she got past the initial shock, I've always felt like she would handle the need to hide her feelings differently to how Leo does, because they both already know they're not related when she realises she's in love with him. The self-loathing is there, but it's much less violent than Leo's, since it comes more from a place of "poor Leo, he'd be so uncomfortable if he knew" than "oh gods I'm Arvis". Plus since Kamui is A Fan of chivalric romances, she’s probably very familiar with the courtly love trope, so I can see her sticking to that as a coping mechanism since it allows her to keep the relationship she already has with Leo. You kind of get a sense for that in their S-support: while neither of them has any hope that their love is requited, Leo comes across more desolate about that, whereas Kamui seems to have just quietly resigned herself to it. It's also just necessary that they both find a way of accepting their own feelings, because otherwise they never will act on them: going back to the canon S-support, Leo was in a positive mind frame when he bought her ring; he just got caught in a downward spiral when he remembered he'd have to actually give her it, haha. Of course, they probably both still feel a bit of internalised shame that’s going to take a long time to shake off even after they confess; Kamui doesn’t go from being Tristan to Lancelot overnight.


	19. Dragonborn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Leo is an earthbender, Kamui is a dragon, and the author is not sorry for anything (even though she really should be).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For full dramatic effect, please put the one-hour loop of the dragon battle theme from Skyrim on in another tab as you’re reading the first scene.
> 
> Also the update schedule is likely to be a bit weird this month (and possibly next month), owing to the fact that February doesn't have a 30th day. I know there's pretty much no chance of my getting the next chapter out on the 28th, since the reason I go at least 15 days between each update is that it usually does take me about that long to write each one (pathetic, I know, but they’re really long and I’m really lazy, haha); I’m not sure whether to post the next two chapters when they’re ready (which would probably mean one in early March and one in mid-to-late March) and then go back to my usual schedule in April, or whether to just hold off on the next one until March 15th, thereby allowing myself some time to build up a buffer (and slack off, haha). I’ll probably make a Twitter poll about it in the next couple of days too, but yeah, let me know what you’d prefer and I’ll take that into account as well.

 

> _“The battle raged for three days and three nights, and neither man nor dragon faltered nor gave an inch to the other, for the Forest Dragon had grown fleet of foot and mind in all the ages it had endured, and the blade bestowed upon Siegfried by the Rainbow Dragon brought to him puissance and courage far beyond that of mortal man. But at last it came to pass that, as the moon rose on the third night, the dragon grew weary, for long years of indolence had tarnished his capacity for endurance, and his movements began to slow; whereupon Siegfried, undaunted by the hours of endless battle, sprang up with his mighty blade aloft, and with a rallying cry, pierced the craven wyrm in his hideous heart. And thus was the Forest Dragon slain, and his ruin lay coiled about the forest where he had lain cowering._
> 
> _And the Dusk Dragon was greatly pleased, for the Forest Dragon’s treachery had, at last, been paid in blood. And He spake thus: ‘Thou hast done well, Siegfried my sworn son. If my false brother will not stand with me in my quest to reclaim the Sun, then in his idleness he stands opposed to me, for in so doing he bespeaks that things should remain as they are, and that the Sun should remain the possession of the Dawn Dragon, though she hoards it beneath her mountain and cares not that thy people lie under an endless frost. Therefore if he will not support me in life, then so mote he support me in death, as a great hall to grant thy warriors shelter from the winter that he might have aided me in ending.’_
> 
> _And Siegfried was pleased that his god and father was pleased, and so it came to pass that he had a great fortress built from the Forest Dragon’s remains. And so mote this hallowed keep stand forever as a monument to his valour and glory.”_
> 
> \- _The Book of Dusk, 2:705_. This scripture chronicles Siegfried’s victory over the Forest Dragon, whose remains would then be used as the foundation for Fort Dragonfall. Accounts on what started the First Dragons’ war vary between cultures, and between religions within those cultures. The _Book of Dusk_ maintains that the Dawn Dragon was the aggressor, plucking the sun from the sky and withholding it for Herself; the _Book of Dawn_ , meanwhile, claims that the war was already ongoing when the Dawn Dragon retreated, and that She did so in order to avoid the conflict without realising that Her absence would also mean the absence of the sun (for an excerpt of this variation on the myth, see chapter 13 of this very work).
> 
> More objective records do indicate that there really was something of a brief ice age in the 6th century, which seems never to have completely ended in Nohr (at the time of writing), but as far as the dragons’ war is concerned, historians are coming to understand that the sun’s disappearance was correlation rather than causation, regardless of the order in which events occurred: the true catalyst was, of course, the onset of the dragons’ degeneration.

 

Light blazed vermillion through Leo’s eyelids. He’d reflexively clamped them shut and grit his teeth when the ring of fire orbs in Fort Dragonfall’s mouth - in the doorway he himself had passed through, only a year ago - had begun to glow. A small part of him still half-anticipated the moment when the flames would plough over him - over Kamui - even as he frantically readied the earth-wall spell. He had no idea what they’d do after that, if they somehow survived the onslaught. His first instinct was to run - but where would they run to, when the enemy could harry them from within the earth itself? Damn it all, if Anankos could have just held off until after they’d bought the warp book…

The deep red in front of his eyes dimmed to the muddy brown of day-old bloodstains before he finished the incantation.

Leo opened a bewildered eye. The flames still billowed through the air, but were swept aside before they reached him by a sudden great tempest whipping through the air in a towering pillar of wind and water. That was all Leo saw for a long moment: no sooner had he opened his eyes than a second light shone forth from the eye of this unnatural storm, beaming out in sharp rays wherever the wall of waters parted. This new light was the brilliant blue of a calm ocean, and clashed in bursts of pure white with the flames, like the birth of a star. It was a sight that probably would have been quite spectacular, if the brightness of it hadn't immediately cast a massive, fizzing violet blot over Leo’s vision.

Gods, what new devilry was this?

“Kamui!” he called blindly, although he himself could scarcely hear his own voice over the roaring of this cyclone, and of the dragon. She had been at Leo’s side when Anankos had attacked; panic gripped him when he realised that she wasn’t there still. He swallowed it down, forcing his mind clear. You’re a strategist, Leo, he reminded himself sharply; be sensible and take stock of your situation. The winds blasted the flames away before they could hit, so at the very least she couldn’t have burned to death; besides which, if she had, the sound and smell would be unmistakable. No, if she wasn’t somewhere near him, she’d be…

She’d be in the eye of the storm, with whatever was causing it.

Leo took a step forward, and felt something hard clink against the toe of his sabaton. Gingerly he bent to pick it up; a half-squinted, half-groped inspection identified it as a short blade, too long to be a dagger, but too short to be a sword, ending in an uneven squarish shape. Useless as a weapon, but too ornate to have been casually discarded.

The Fire Emblem.

Leo’s blind spot cleared shortly after the light did. The swirling waters, too, fell away, unravelling in thin streams like some vast chrysalis; although the creature they unleashed was rather larger than a moth.

“Gods be good,” Leo whispered aloud.

This dragon was a good deal smaller than their opponent, standing perhaps four times as tall as Leo when it reared onto its hind-legs. Even so, it was difficult not to be somewhat awed by the beast: it could still probably crush his ribcage with one foot. Much like Anankos’s true form, it appeared to lack scales, and in their place, its body was covered in armoured plates, like the carapace of some strange aquatic creature. Its head was crowned with a set of - were they horns, or antlers? Leo couldn’t tell, and in any case, now really wasn't the time to be testing his knowledge of animal anatomy. A second dragon had appeared, from gods only knew where, and Kamui was still nowhere to be seen.

And then he realised.

_“When I talked about exercising self-control, I wasn’t suggesting complete repression. Mentioning your childhood in passing, to someone who was there to witness it, isn’t going to spontaneously turn you into some approximation of the wyrm.”_

_“It might, actually.”_

Vaguely, Leo recalled the conversation he’d had with Kamui in his study, when they first made their plans to set out on this journey. He never had found out what she’d meant; was _this_ what she had been alluding to? Were her concerns about draconic degeneration more literal, more immediate, than Leo’s?

Gods, was Kamui a _manakete?_

Brynhildr still open in one hand, Leo stowed the Fire Emblem into his coat-pocket and took one uneasy step towards this new arrival. The dragon whipped its head around to face him. There were no eyes on that face, nor any sign of eye sockets; only a hard dark shell that extended from the back of the skull to the end of the snout. No flash of flaming vermillion, nor of warm amaranthine. If Leo had guessed wrong here, then there was no way for him to know if this truly was Kamui, or just some other puppet of Anankos’s, until he was within goring distance of those branching horns.

“Kamui?” he asked tentatively. The dragon inclined its - her - head to him forlornly, almost apologetically, and made a soft sound somewhere between a growl and a purr. At the same time, her voice echoed through Leo’s mind.

 _“Yes,”_ she said quietly. _“Yes, it’s me. This is… this is what I am.”_

The way she spoke to him now felt similar to the way Anankos had, that day in the throne room, and yet not so. It was less invasive, less of a violation; there was no sense that Kamui could actually see into Leo’s brain, thank the gods. It felt like she was calling to him from outside through an open window, rather than breaking and entering.

Leo choked out a laugh of pure disbelief. “Well, you might have told me you could do that the last time we fought this guy.”

Kamui’s head drooped further. _“Leo, I’m sorry. I should have warned you sooner -”_

“Hey, I jest. It’s fine.” Leo paused, remembering where they were. “But we’ll discuss it after we’ve dealt with… all this.”

Kamui lifted her head again, regarding him for a long moment, though what was going on behind that featureless face, Leo would never know. But then she bowed it again, this time in a brisk nod. When she straightened again, her stance was more resolute; when she spoke again, her voice rang clear through Leo’s head. _“Let’s go.”_

When this was over, he would take the time - a lot of time - to fully process this revelation; but on the battlefield, sadly, curiosity must always give way to pragmatism. Sure enough, Anankos had recovered from his initial bewilderment, and was drawing back to charge them. Leo scrambled to get out of the dragon’s path, stumbling gracelessly over the icy terrain; the next thing he registered was something slamming into his stomach, with a force that threw him several feet backwards into the snow.

Gathering himself up, both physically and mentally, Leo saw that the _something_ was Kamui’s tail; it swished, snakelike, through the air in front of him, in much the same way as Siegkat’s did when she’d seen a bat fly past the window. Kamui had grabbed him as she was making a dash for it herself, just before Fort Dragonfall had hit the ground; the creature still lay there, probably dazed from the impact. Controlling another person’s brain wasn’t much use when the brain was damaged, it seemed.

Still, if Anankos was out of commission for the moment, that gave Leo an opening to act. He didn’t even have to open Brynhildr for this spell: the incantation came as naturally to him as breathing, as he directed his magic to the spot beneath the dragon’s skull.

There was a great explosion of water, as the ash tree spiralled up. When it cleared, the field was deserted.

 _“That went well,”_ Kamui remarked drily.

Leo kept his eyes trained on the spot where the dragon had fallen. It _shouldn’t_ have been that easy. If the scriptures were to be believed, Siegfried’s battle with this particular dragon had raged for three days and three nights; and that was before its hide had been covered with an additional layer of stone. He turned to Kamui, and tentatively raised a hand to her shoulder.

“You… should probably stay like that a moment longer,” he warned, nerves and exhaustion reducing his words to a ragged mutter. “I don’t know if I got him or not; I think he _ARGH_ -”

His sentence abruptly shattered into a yelp, as the ground reared up beneath them, and slammed down hard.

The dragon’s foot was a vast wall of stone and bone and frozen sinew, as big as a stable and probably just as heavy. It pressed crushingly down onto them now; Kamui snarled as she braced her shoulders against it, prying it away from the ground, and from Leo, with what was probably unimaginable effort. Her neck was bowed low, her wings bent at unnatural angles under the sole of the foot.

Leo all but threw Brynhildr open, tearing through the pages for the levitation spell - but how much weight was this to carry? The foot itself was more massive than anything Leo had tried to lift before, and the force pressing it down was rather heavier than gravity. If he got any of these values even slightly wrong, the results could potentially be more lethal than the situation they were in already. And that was assuming he could even draw out enough energy to power the spell in the first place.

 _“Leo, get out of here!”_ Kamui’s voice thundered urgently through his skull; but the growl with which she vocalised the words aloud softened into a pained whimper, as Anankos twisted his borrowed foot, grinding her deeper into the ground with a nauseating crunch. There _was_ still an opening between the dragon’s claws, just big enough to duck through; a lesser tactician, a lesser friend, and a lesser man than Leo might have left through it.

Leo turned back to Brynhildr, and readied his spell.

_“Wait, what are you -”_

Green light exploded around them, as the tree speared up through the dragon’s foot.

Anankos let out an unholy roar, although it sounded more enraged than hurt, as he yanked his foot back; the action ripped the entire tree up by its roots. This injury would be little more than a slap on the wrist (albeit in a fairly literal sense), but it freed Kamui from the wyrm’s grip.

 _“Ah, thanks, Leo,”_ she sighed ruefully, giving her cramped wings a quick, experimental flap, as if trying to shake away the pain. Her voice fell into a more wicked tone, then. _“Now do that again, but to the rest of it.”_

“That could be tricky. I’ve never tried growing a tree in midair before,” Leo pointed out. The dragon had taken off again, and if the glowing in its mouth was any indicator, it was readying another round of fireballs.

_“Fair point. So what’s our plan?”_

Leo paused, running through what he now remembered of the dragon lore he had memorised as a boy; gods, where was Shigure when you needed him? “Are the stories about dragons having weak underbellies true, or does that only apply to wyverns?”

 _“I don’t know. Mine is armoured, but…”_ Kamui made an excited little chirping sound, then. _“Wait, though, didn’t Siegfried stab it in the heart? So there’d still be a nick in the armour there, if it has any…”_

Leo clapped the side of her neck, in a sarcastic pastiche of cheerfulness. “We’ll make a strategist of you yet.”

Kamui’s chuckle registered in her new, reptilian throat as a horrible braying sound, but the version Leo heard in his head was a bright chime, at once both soothing and rousing, like the strain of a war-horn. He let out an admittedly undignified sound somewhere between a gasp and a yelp, as she looped her tail around his waist and lifted him somewhat ungently onto her back. _“You’re more used to fighting while mounted, right?”_

As Leo scrambled into a more natural seating position, he allowed himself a moment’s quiet wonderment - only a moment - to take in the reality that he was about to ride a manakete into battle. He ran a hand disbelievingly along the plates of armour covering Kamui’s neck, marvelling at how warm she was: he’d always assumed dragons would be cold-blooded as any other reptile, but even her armour seemed to radiate a soft heat. Her wings seemed to have mostly recovered from the strain they’d taken earlier, thank the gods; the membrane of them was of a silvery iridescence, like a dragonfly’s wings, so much like the colour Kamui’s hair took on in the moonlight - so much more impressive than the wings of a common wyvern.

“Can you still fly?” he asked; before remembering the question that, logically, should have come first. “Wait, _can_ you fly, or are the wings vestigial?”

 _“I can, but probably not as well as a trained mount,”_ Kamui admitted. _“Better hold on tight. This could get bumpy.”_

Leo didn’t need telling twice. Anankos unleashed his attack even as Kamui kicked off from the ground. Between the force at which they surged skyward, and the clouds of flames smashing into the spot where they’d just been standing, Leo soon found himself clinging to Kamui’s neck for dear life, his face pressed like a limpet to the plate. Yet again he forced his mind clear, turning it back to the task at hand (though he remained profoundly grateful that his attentions were to be focussed on Anankos’s chest, and not his feet).

“Do you… do you see any sign of the stab wound?” he called, raising his voice to a shout to make it heard over the howling of the winds and Anankos’s gravelly roars.

 _“No, but I’ll keep - Leo, get down!”_ Kamui swerved jerkily to the side, as a rain of - gods, were those _arrows_? - swept down over them. Another volley followed almost immediately, and another after that. Kamui dodged most of them, albeit jerkily; the few that hit their mark glanced uselessly off her armoured body.

“How is he even doing that?” Leo yelled incredulously, as they dodged a fourth wave. “I mean, it’s not like the ballistae are connected to its nervous system…”

 _“I don’t know, magic?”_ Kamui suggested, as she swatted a stray bolt away from Leo’s head with her tail.

“I suppose,” mumbled Leo dubiously; then jerked his head back as another arrow sailed past his face. Except… this one had been shot from the opposite direction. Faintly, he could just about hear voices from the ground.

“Careful! You almost hit Lady Kamui!”

“Well, those other ones didn’t seem to faze her.” Leo identified Niles’s voice with equal parts relief and dread: an archer was precisely what they needed in this situation, but not one who didn’t know that Anankos could disappear into anything that contained water. “I’ll try to play nicer, though.”

Leo forced himself to hazard a glance downwards. Their retainers had caught up to them: Niles and Mozu were both nocking more arrows, and Odin was thumbing through his copy of Fimbulvetr. Jakob, too, was standing by with staff in hand. Kamui had seen them too; her laugh resounded joyously in Leo’s head as she turned to glide back to earth. Anankos sent another mouthful of fire down after them, but this time Leo had seen it coming; he threw up an earth wall even as they descended, shielding their retainers below from the brunt of the attack.

Anankos jerked his head up.

Kamui let out a deafening howl, which resounded through Leo’s head as the most blood-curdling cry, as the flames closed around them. When the skies cleared, they were falling.

A feint! Leo cursed himself in every language he spoke, as he cast a rough enough estimation of the gravity spell to slow their descent. Kamui’s wings had shielded him from all but a few minor singes, but she had borne the full brunt of the attack. When they hit the ground, Leo threw himself off her, and circled around to examine the side Anankos had struck. To his dubious relief, there were no outward signs of wear to her gleaming armour; had her fall been prompted by the force of the blast, rather than any actual injury?

“Lady Kamui!” Jakob and Mozu hurtled over to them, their faces as ashen as Leo’s own must surely have been. She staggered to her feet almost immediately, but now Leo could see the repressed effort behind the movement: she favoured her left side heavily, and there was a delicate hesitance to the way she lifted her head, as if moving her neck pained her.

 _“I’m all right,”_ she insisted; though even speaking with her mind, rather than her larynx, did nothing to mask the unevenness of her breathing. _“I’m not, I’m not hurt.”_

“Milady, you were just shot from the sky into a twenty-foot drop,” said Jakob flatly.

Kamui laughed weakly. _“Nothing gets past you, does it, Jakob? Okay, maybe I could use a quick patch-up. But it… has to be quick. We can’t let that… thing get near anywhere there’s people…”_

Jakob made a disapproving little noise, but set to work on the healing spell nonetheless. “I won’t ask how you got yourselves into this mess in the first place.”

“We’ll explain later,” Leo sighed. “Right now we need to focus on getting out of it again, as Kamui said.”

Jakob accepted this readily enough, being more preoccupied with Kamui’s injuries (even though there was still no visible sign of any), but the concern etched into Mozu’s face only deepened.

“Milord!” Odin came dashing up, flanked by Niles. “Has the arch-demon come upon us again?”

“I think so,” said Leo grimly. “He’s using Fort Dragonfall as a vessel; that’s why we couldn’t find it yesterday. We’re not sure if it’s a temporary measure, or if he means to transfer his consciousness to it permanently, but -”

“A moment, my liege,” Odin interrupted, his voice quivering slightly. “Can I be hearing you right? The silent dragon has taken the form of a fortress? With… all the attack power that implies?”

“Yes. His mouth is fitted with fire orbs, and -”

He was interrupted by a whistling from overhead, heralding another volley of ballista bolts; he threw up another stone shield, which they clattered against with a hammering like hailstones on a windowpane.

“And, as you can see, he’s shown himself capable of firing the ballistae installed at various points on his body.” Leo concluded, cringing at how ridiculous it sounded when he said it. “Gods know how he’s doing that.”

Odin’s voice rose several octaves. “We’re about to fight a dragon that _shoots arrows and fireballs?_ ”

“Well, that’s got him standing to shoot,” Niles snickered, and he wasn't wrong. Gods, Odin looked like all his birthdays had come at once.

Leo snorted. “I suppose it will make for a good story after the fact. Assuming we survive this.”

“Have you located his weak point?”

“Weak point?” Mozu echoed, confused; she’d been following this conversation a little blankly.

“All bosses have a weak point,” Odin supplied helpfully. Poor Mozu looked even more perplexed by that.

“Well, this one might, anyway. Legend holds that the dragon that went on to become Fort Dragonfall was slain when Siegfried stabbed it through the heart,” Leo explained. “So Kamui figures our best bet is to seek out the scar from that wound -”

 _“Someone say my name?”_ Kamui came bounding over, still in dragon form. She was tailed by a rather frazzled-looking Jakob.

“Milady, I told you you’re still in no fit state to fight!” he protested.

 _“And I told you you worry too much. You did a fine job of healing me,”_ she said airily. _“Anyway, what did I miss?”_

“We were just going over the plan.” In truth, Leo was slightly dubious too, but he didn’t press the issue. Under any other circumstances, he might have done - his personal feelings aside, it was hardly good strategy to risk losing one of his best generals - but if they were to survive the night, then they’d need to make use of every asset they had, and by gods that included the fact that one of them was currently a twelve-foot dragon. With that in mind, he turned back to their retainers. “So as I say, if Niles and Mozu keep firing at that area, and Odin and I focus our spells on it, that should be enough to bring it down.” Leo dreaded to think what would happen if it wasn’t, but racked his brains for some kind of plan for that eventuality anyway. “I’ll block as many of the wyrm’s projectile attacks as I can, but you’ll also have to be prepared to run if it tries to charge or trample you. And it can disappear and reappear at will, so… stay on your toes.”

“Um,” said Mozu thoughtfully. “If we want to stop it from moving about, can we get Jakob to freeze it? Would that work on a dragon?”

Leo wheeled on Jakob, heart in mouth. “Do you _have_ a Freeze staff?”

Jakob shrugged. “It’s old; and as Mozu says, I’m not sure how much use it’s like to be on such a large target.”

“Probably won’t keep him immobilised as long as it would a human,” Leo confirmed. “But if you use it after we’ve located the chink in the armour, it should buy us a second to strike. So if we…”

Thus the plan was laid out, and the six of them moved to set it into motion with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Odin was positively buzzing; Mozu and Niles proceeded with a cautious degree of optimism; Jakob took his place at the rear of their formation with a series of pointed disapproving noises.

Leo was fairly uneasy himself. He and Kamui had given themselves the most perilous task, and while he wasn’t concerned for himself (well, no more so than any sane person would be), Jakob still maintained that Kamui hadn’t been fully healed. She insisted that she felt fine, but that meant little coming from her: you could cut all of Kamui’s arms and legs off, and she would still try to shrug it off as only a flesh wound.

 _“Ready to go?”_ Kamui nudged Leo’s shoulder with her snout. He snorted.

“I assume that was rhetorical,” he sighed, as he clambered onto her back. The novelty of riding a dragon was beginning to clash with the hardness of her armour under him, leaving Leo with a newfound appreciation for Nosferatu’s saddle. “Listen, I could probably just levitate myself in my usual fashion, if -”

 _“Hey, I keep saying I’m fine,”_ said Kamui warmly. _“And you are too, Leo. It’s a good plan.”_

“It really isn’t, but it’s all I could come up with,” Leo countered ruefully. “Hopefully that infamous luck of yours will rub off on the rest of us, though.”

Kamui laughed. _“I’ll try to send it your way.”_

With that, she arched her body back into a crouch, priming herself to spring up. Leo lifted a hand to the side of her neck. “Hey, Kamui?”

 _“Hm?”_ Kamui didn’t look round, but he could just see the moonlight glinting off her horns as she tilted her head to the side.

“I, er…” The words had been halfway to his mouth, before he thought better of speaking them; if he should fall here, then it would be far better for her if they parted as friends. “I should also remind you that if he starts shooting fireballs again, the general practice is to fly _away_ from them, not towards them.”

 _“Gods, Leo, you’re the worst!”_ she cried, though the braying sound that accompanied her words seemed more amused than indignant.

“Let’s hope I’m a better strategist than I am a jester,” he concurred. “Now, shall we?”

_“Yes, let’s go. We’ve got this, Leo.”_

Kamui drew back a little, then shot, once again, into the sky.

Immediately, Leo opened Brynhildr onto the page he’d marked. He had mostly memorised the earth-wall spell, but he’d never cast it on this scale before; after consulting the relevant passage carefully, he cast it over the ground below.

Unfortunately, this involved looking down.

Leo forced himself to focus on what was happening on the ground, rather than how very far away it was. Mozu, Niles and Odin had already fanned out to take their positions, and were readying their weapons. Leo drew up a ring of stone around them, as wide as a watchtower and as high as a crenellation; tall enough to serve as cover if Anankos opened fire again, but not so tall as to impede the archers. Niles signalled to him that it was high enough, and Leo turned his attentions to his next task, though he did not release the spell.

As Kamui flew them higher, the dragon swept its foot down to meet them; fortunately, it was the foot Leo had already wedged a tree into. There were only a few large clumps of earth hanging off its roots, but they served as just enough of a foundation for Leo to engorge the trunk further. It swelled in the wound, until the brittle wall of stone and bone gave out around it, and the entire foot shattered in a burst of gravel.

Kamui laughed incredulously. _“How did you do that?”_

“I don’t know, magic?” Leo grinned. They were coming up level with the dragon’s chest now. “Do you see the scar?”

 _“Not yet, but I’ll keep - whoa!”_ She turned in midair to shield Leo from another barrage of arrows with her wing. Leo began to protest, but they didn’t seem to do as much damage to Kamui’s body as the fire orbs did. Instead, he shifted his focus to their retainers. They still seemed to be holding up behind their erstwhile battlement. Occasionally an arrow or a jet of blue light would zip past Kamui, but they didn’t seem to be having much effect on Fort Dragonfall. That was fine. They would have their moment when he reached the next stage of the plan. With that in mind, Leo kept the earth-wall spell going in the background, and resumed his search for the dragon’s heart.

As expected, Fort Dragonfall’s underbelly hadn’t been built over at any point. The dragon had lain flat on its stomach in a serpentine coil, and the fortress’s walls had been constructed around it, its insides hollowed out to form the interior. As such, the dragon’s chest was fortified only with its own natural armour; but that in itself was nothing to be scoffed at. Ironically, this dead dragon’s body was holding together far better than Anankos’s true form: its leathery hide still formed an unbroken wall, so knotted with sinew that it was damn near impossible to tell what was a sword slash and what was a cleft between muscles. Leo squinted furiously at the surface, combing it with his eyes while keeping his ears turned to the chaos happening around them.

_“Leo, there!”_

He spotted it shortly after Kamui did: a puckered slit in the muscle, about a hand tall, was carved into the dragon’s chest at a point slightly above their heads. Well, at the very least the weak spot did exist; though Leo wouldn’t allow himself to get excited about that until after they’d shot a few arrows into it. He slammed his hand onto Brynhildr’s cover, drawing a decent amount of magic from it, and cast his spell.

Leo had never built an earth wall this tall before, but so far it seemed to be holding up. The ground beneath the castellation he’d made rose up, forming a tower of sorts; Leo continued to lift it until it was a few metres below Kamui. It wasn’t a solid structure, though - Leo would have needed a dragon vein, and the ability to use it, in order to alter the terrain that dramatically. They would have to strike quickly, before Anankos could topple it.

Realising Leo’s intentions, Anankos brought his other foreleg around, swiping his claws in to smash the walls, but the tower’s ascent had been Jakob’s cue: there was a pop of white light, and the foot froze mid-swing.

“Here!” Leo cried immediately; he tapped Brynhildr again, and threw another spell at the wound. It bounced uselessly off the dragon’s hide in a shower of sparks, but it had done its job: following the light, a stream of ice and arrows streaked into the crack. Leo scrambled to keep his grip as Kamui, too, barrelled up towards it, and drove her horns in to deliver the final blow.

The Freeze spell only held for a moment, before Jakob’s staff splintered and fell to pieces in his hand. Anankos reared his head and let out a terrible roar.

And kept falling back.

He hit the ground with a deafening thud, and a quake that sent cracks up the tower. Leo hastily broke the earth-wall spell, letting the tower sink back to the ground before it fell apart. By the time their party had reached the ground, Fort Dragonfall had vanished, once again, into the earth, leaving no sign that it had ever been.

“Did we do it?” Leo asked, as he climbed off Kamui.

 _“I don’t think so,”_ she sighed. _“When I fought King Ga…”_ She paused, probably remembering who she was talking to. _“The last time I fought one of his puppets, his body sort of exploded into a fountain of water that streamed upwards. Here, the body just went back into the ground.”_

“So he is still out there, then.” Leo nodded grimly; it never was that easy. “I suppose we’ll have to - Kamui?”

She had taken a few steps back from Leo. Blue light enveloped her, just as it had when she had first transformed, although this time it was less blinding; beyond it, Leo could see her silhouette shift, as her body receded into its usual shape and size. When the light cleared, Kamui was as she had always been - just as fair, just as sprightly, just as human. She stood frozen for a long moment; both of her hands were clamped over her chest, and the light continued to stream through the gaps between her fingers.

She fell forward almost immediately.

Leo didn’t quite reach Kamui in time to catch her before she planted into the snow; instead he dropped to his knees before her, lifting her gingerly to brace her against his shoulder. The damage she had taken in that battle was plain to see now. Her _haori_ coat appeared to be mostly intact, and her armour was not so much as dented, but above her collar, he could see the burns blistering up her neck, almost extending past her jaw. The fireball had struck her entire left side, as Leo recalled; he shuddered to think of how severe her wounds must be underneath the layers of wool and plate. When her eyes opened, they were dark with anguish, but not for her injuries: there was horror there, and regret. Still she kept her hands clasped at her heart - clasped _around_ something, Leo realised; the blue light was coming from between her fists, which were clenched as tight around its source as if she feared that someone might try to snatch it from her.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing she said. “I won’t do that again, I swear… I never meant to…”

“It’s fine,” Leo said, his voice strangled by worry and pity and exhaustion into a choked whisper. “It was reckless, but you drew his attention away from the others -”

“No. Not that. I mean… I’ve been trying so hard to control it…” Kamui’s every word was forced out through gritted teeth, and seemingly at great effort: even in her armour, Leo could feel her trembling against him. He resisted the urge to tighten his hold on her; pressing too hard on her shoulder would only aggravate her burns.

“We need to get you healed. Properly, this time. - _Jakob!_ ” Leo turned to call the butler over, and was much relieved to see him already sprinting to them, closely followed by Mozu. Niles and Odin were still a few feet away, picking up the arrows that had been left littered about the field.

“Get her back to camp,” Jakob barked immediately. “I did say she wasn’t fully healed.”

“You’re gonna be okay, milady,” Mozu soothed, as she bent to help Leo lift her.

Kamui sat up straight at that, shrugging Leo’s arm off her shoulder. “N-no, we need to keep going. What if he targets Windmire next, or Macarath? We have to warn people -”

_“Oh, Lady Kamui, will you please stop this?”_

Kamui blinked at that, and Jakob looked as if he’d been struck by lightning. Mozu paused as well, her face steadily reddening, as she realised what she’d just done.

“Ack, s-sorry, I didn’t mean to snap!” she cried. “But, just… you keep going to all these dangerous places on your own, and saying you don’t need help when you do, and… don’t you ever stop and think what’d happen if one day you didn’t come back? What that’d do to…” Her face took on that odd pinched shape that usually meant a person was trying not to cry.

Kamui looked pretty close to tears herself. “Mozu…”

“You’re always saying you want to make things better for everyone,” she continued. “But you can’t do that if you’re… if you keep going off without us.”

Kamui cringed ruefully. “Guess I can’t really argue with that one.”

“I did say you were too apt to martyr yourself,” Leo snorted. This proved to be the wrong thing to say; Mozu turned to him, her dark eyes lit by the plaintive glint of suppressed tears.

“I might say the same of you though, milord! You both keep going out together without a guard. Like that time you went to rescue Mr. Gunter, and didn’t come home till sun-up? Jakob and I met you on the road ‘cause Lady Camilla sent us out to look for you, she were that worried! You both need to just… let us do our jobs.” Her expression melted, again, into panic, presumably with the realisation that she’d just reprimanded a king; but she continued, albeit in a softer tone. “Jakob and me, Odin and Niles… we’re here to look out for you. Not just to clean up after you.”

Kamui slipped her burned arm around Mozu’s shoulder, and pulled her into a loose embrace (Leo’s stomach gave a lurch when he saw her wince; gods, how severely burned was she?). “It’s my job to look after the two of you, too,” she said quietly. “Believe me when I say I’m doing all this for a good reason.”

“You’ve done enough for us already,” said Mozu quietly. “If you want to take care of us, then let us take care of you.”

“It is as she says,” Jakob concurred; he was still looking a little ruffled. “Although I don’t believe I’d have said it aloud.”

Mozu flushed again. “Oh gosh, I shouldn’t’ve said it, should I? I-I’m real sorry, milady, King Leo; please don’t sack me, or cut my head off, or -”

Kamui sighed, and pulled away from Mozu with a wry smile. “No, it needed saying. I’m sorry, both of you.”

“Don’t apologise so much, milady,” said Jakob. “As Mozu said, if you want to make amends to us, you can start by _finally_ letting us treat your injuries properly. And I’ll not be so brazen as to make any additional demands of you or Lord Leo, but I think we’d all be grateful for a thorough explanation as to why the two of you were out fighting a dragon that spits arrows in the first place.”

“Ha, I think I can stretch to that,” Kamui chuckled. “And I’ll admit that these burns are starting to make me think of all Leo’s horror stories about contracture, so… yes, please get rid of them for me.”

“Actually,” Leo remarked sweetly, as he and Mozu guided Kamui to her feet, “that mostly just applies to second-degree burns. With third-degree burns, there’s a higher risk of the affected area having to be amputated entirely -”

“Jakob?” Kamui cut in, matching Leo’s pleasant tone. “Throw a snowball at Leo for me. That’s an order.”

“Alas, as ill as it behooves me to refuse an order from you, Lady Kamui, I fear I must implore you to revoke it: legally, I am still a Nohrian citizen, and assaulting the king would see me hanged for treason,” said Jakob primly.

Leo grinned. “Thank you, Jakob; your loyalty to the crown will be remem -”

“So I humbly suggest you make Mozu do it.”

 

* * *

 

“So the play you guys wrote for the coronation was all based on what’s actually happening?” Niles summarised, inching a little closer to the fire. They had returned to their camp for the time being, but Leo and his retainers had been rather unceremoniously shooed out of the conjured cave while Jakob and Mozu examined Kamui’s burns (“I’ll not have that Niles creature lurking about with Lady Kamui in naught but her combinations!”). The three of them sat in the doorway now, staving off the night frosts with the aid of a rather forlorn little campfire Odin had summoned.

“That’s the short of it, yes,” Leo nodded, enormously relieved that he wouldn’t have to explain it in any more detail than that. “As I say, we couldn’t speak of these matters openly, so Odin and I wrote an allegorical play for the purposes of ferreting out anyone else who might already know of them.”

“Ah,” Niles nodded. “So that’s why half the guest list was taken up with mages and such.”

“So… when the two of you went off together all those times… you were out fighting a _dragon?_ Not evil mages?” asked Mozu dubiously; she stood in the doorway behind them, with an armful of waybread. She sat down and began toasting it. “I thought Lady Kamui’d like a snack,” she said, in an explanatory parenthesis.

“How long have you been skulking there?” asked Niles.

“Since the part about the play. But we’ve both been listening to all of it with half an ear,” said Mozu, with an apologetic little bow of her head. “Lady Kamui said it was important for us to hear it as well.”

It had seemed rather quiet back there, now that Leo thought about it. That was a relief; explaining Anankos to Niles had been nerve-wracking enough the first time, and he really didn’t fancy having to repeat it to someone as argumentative as Jakob.

“Good, so you were able to follow it,” he said aloud. “Yes, all our outings together were in the name of dispatching him. My apologies for the deception; we just weren’t sure how to explain it to all of you without invoking the curse.”

“Could’ve just had Odin say it,” Niles shrugged.

“Uncalled-for,” Leo chided.

“No, I mean because everything he says is tied up in so many layers of fancy talk that he could probably tell us all of it openly, and it would come to nothing.” Niles reached for the piece of toast Mozu had just heated, as she was spearing another; she batted his hand away without looking round.

“I shall take that as a compliment, friend Niles!” said Odin brightly. “Always nice to see people appreciate the esoteric element of my wordcraft. But it is as Lord Leo says: _The Dark Lord’s Gambit_ was no mere theatrical diversion, but rather an oracular warning of what is to come, should our own dark lord fail to dispatch the Silent Dragon.”

Mozu breathed out an exasperated sound, somewhere between a weary sigh and a disbelieving chuckle. “Sure wish you’d told us all this sooner. It was bad enough when we thought you were just beating up normal bad guys, but going to fight a dragon on your own… and a bigger one than Lady Kamui, at that! What’ll we do with the both of you?”

“I wish we had as well, honestly,” Leo admitted. “It would have made a lot of things easier if we’d been working in larger numbers to begin with. Still, now that you are involved, I’m afraid we’ll be pitting you against the dragon again at least twice in the near future.”

Niles frowned. “Twice?”

“The form he fought us in tonight is not his real body,” Leo explained. “He has the power to make puppets out of corpses - like a very advanced form of necromancy. So right now it seems he’s using the remains of Fort Dragonfall as a war machine of sorts.”

Mozu hugged her knees a little more tightly. “So then Mr. Gunter…”

“Ah, now, Gunter’s situation is a little different. Occasionally, the dragon may also try to manipulate someone who’s still alive, and force them to kill themselves so he can take full control of them that way.”

“Like the king in the play,” Niles mused; a shadow passed over his face, then. “Wait, does that mean your father…?”

“Was the inspiration for that particular plot element, yes,” said Leo quietly. “But in Gunter’s case, he’s still alive, and the dragon is just sort of perching in his head, watching us through his eyes. Hence why we couldn’t bring him along on this expedition.”

“So to save him, we just have to kill the dragon?” Mozu took the slice of toast off the arrow she’d had it skewered on, broke it into three pieces, and passed them round.

“You don’t seem too fazed.” Niles almost sounded impressed.

“Ach, when you’ve wrangled bears, you can wrangle most anything,” said Mozu airily.

“Well, this is true.”

“Anyway,” Leo interjected hastily, not liking how widely and wickedly Niles was grinning. “I’ll hold off on deciding our next course of action until after I’ve conferred with Kamui, but I still think our first priority should be reforging this.” (Here he produced the Fire Emblem.) “Actually, that’s a point: Mozu, if you could take it back to her…”

“Deliver it yourself.” Jakob had appeared behind them, and was stowing a Mend staff into his pack.

“Jakob!” Leo sprang, immediately, to his feet. “How is she?”

“Her wounds are fully healed, but the shock will take longer to clear; it’s not my place to dictate our next move, but I’d advise letting her rest until morning at the very least. She’s asking to see you.” Jakob put an inexplicable emphasis on that last part, but gods only knew what _he_ thought this was about. For a horrible moment, Leo wondered if she’d told Jakob how he felt, or if the butler had guessed it himself, but dismissed this as paranoia: for a start, Jakob wasn’t swinging his fists. Fortunately, it didn’t seem as if anyone else was inclined to tease him about the prospect of a tête-à-tête this time, thank all the gods; all the day’s excitement had left Leo drained enough already.

“Okay. Thank you, Jakob.” Leo took a few wafers of toasted waybread from Mozu, and made his way back inside.

It was warmer in the cavern than outside it, but not by much. A larger fire chuckled to itself in the pit they’d dug, but it still bowed to the occasional draught from the doorway. Kamui sat on her bedroll, the blanket crumpled back in such a way as to suggest that it had been kicked aside, and was buckling her greaves back on.

“Sensible,” said Leo, by way of announcing himself.

Kamui sighed. “I know, Jakob says I should rest. But how am I supposed to do that when… _he_ … could be razing the nearest village to the ground right now?”

“No, I meant it as a commendation, not sarcasm. Any warrior worthy of the name can rest in armour if they need to; besides, we can’t exactly take five to get dressed if he attacks us again.”

“Gods, can you imagine?” Kamui chuckled, as she picked her cuisses off the ground and stood up to slip them over her thighs. “‘Excuse us, Mister Evil Dragon God, we need to postpone our epic duel for the moment: Leo put his cuirass on back-to-front and we have to wait for him to fix it’.”

“I’m about eighty-five percent certain you meant that as a hypothetical example for the purposes of the joke, so don’t laugh at me for checking,” Leo stipulated, before doing so. Kamui did laugh, but only for a moment; both the sound and her smile flickered out then, leaving her to stare, subdued, at the poleyn she’d picked up.

“Hey, so…” Leo began hesitantly, as he drew nearer. “Jakob said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

The question was largely rhetorical; he had a suspicion he already knew what this was about.

Kamui lifted her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes still held the same fear they had when she’d first transformed back, but it was a quieter horror now: less frantic, and more sorrowful. It was the same way she had looked at him that night in Valla; the night when she had told him everything, and he had been too damn dense to understand what she’d meant.

“Um. Let me start by saying that… that I’ll completely understand if you never want to see me again after this,” she said, in an ashen whisper. “I’ve been trying my hardest to contain it, but… well, as you saw tonight, my hardest isn’t good enough. But that was my first transformation in months, and I swear I won’t let it happen again.”

“What - Kamui…” Leo shook his head. “I understand your concerns, but being a manakete is nothing to apologise for. If anything, I’d say it’s quite the opposite: Kamui, think how we can use this! Now that I know what you’re capable of, I can plan around -”

“Leo… thank you, but no,” Kamui interrupted hastily. “Just… no. I used to think I could use this part of me to help people too. Transform on the battlefield to protect my friends, and then still go back to being myself at the end of the day, like Tiki and Bantu in the sagas. But then I spoke with the Rainbow Sage, and he warned me that if I didn’t start taking measures to keep myself in check, I’d end up becoming more like…” She broke off with a grimace. “Well, you know.”

“You’d degenerate more rapidly,” Leo elaborated grimly. “Hence your feeling the need to repress your negative emotions.”

“Mm.” Kamui closed her eyes, and a shadow passed over her face. When she spoke, it was in a voice muted to a careful stillness, yet bitterly edged with the emotions she was holding back. “It probably sounds paranoid, but my first transformation… it wasn’t a great experience. I was trapped inside my own head, aware of my actions but unable to control them. Every noise around me was deafening, every colour was a blinding light. The world around me was suddenly so terrifying that I just wanted to make it all disappear, even as I was screaming at myself not to. And in that panic, I… ended up lashing out at people I cared about.”

Kamui had curled in on herself as she was saying all this, her shoulders bunched up under her ears; she let them fall now with a shaky sigh. When her eyes opened, the fear was still there, but it had hardened into a defensive sort of resolve.

“I never want to experience that again,” she said simply. “I’m sorry, Leo. I know that if I managed to keep a lid on it, it would make things easier for us, but it’s not worth the risk of going berserk again for. It’s… not worth making myself a danger to you for.”

“Kamui…” Gods, Leo hadn’t seen her look so exhausted since the day the war had ended. Her brow was so tightly knit that she could have made Xander look carefree; her lower eyelids were quirked up in such a way as to suggest that the only reason she wasn’t crying was that she was too drained for the tears to come out. It sent an ache through him more bitter than the horror of realising that he loved her, or the sorrow of thinking that he’d lost her to the Hoshidans. It was pity beyond pity, a pain that cut all the sharper for the knowledge that it would scarcely compare to what she was feeling now, and that he could do nothing for her.

And through all of it, she still managed to force a weary smile to shine forth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. But - _Leo?!_ ”

He acted almost without thinking - by the time he was fully aware of what he was doing, his arms were already around her shoulders. It was a loose embrace, not so much holding her as orbiting her, and would have been easy enough for Kamui to pull away from if she wanted to. Regardless, Leo regretted it as soon as he’d done it; he was about to release her, with a string of apologies, when she collapsed against him with a sigh that shook her entire body. She hung awkwardly, rigidly, in his arms for a moment, hands still gripping her poleyn, but then she bowed her head to rest it in the nook where Leo’s neck and shoulder met, face buried in the fur lining of his coat.

“Never apologise for any of that,” Leo whispered into her hair. Gingerly, he shifted one hand to hold her shoulders less stiffly, and brought its brother to rest at the back of her head. “I won’t make you use your power on the field if you’re uncomfortable with the idea. But… dragon or no, you have as much right to express your emotions as anyone, and especially to me. You were my first friend, Kamui; whatever else has happened between us, you’ll always be that to me. So first off, never, _ever_ feel like you have to apologise for telling me if something’s preying on your mind.”

“It’s not that simple,” Kamui mumbled into his coat. “You know now that it’s not that simple. If I dwell on these kinds of thoughts too much when I’m in your presence, I’ll become a threat to your physical safety.”

“Will you, though?” Leo winced internally as he felt Kamui tense up for a second at that. “I won’t pretend to know more about what you’re going through than you do, or the Sage does. But… how often have you lost control of yourself since that first transformation?”

Kamui paused at that. “Never. But that’s mostly because I have my dragonstone. And the Sage said that on its own wasn’t going to be enough in the long-term.”

“So how did you manage before you got your dragonstone?” asked Leo.

“What?”

“If you were born a manakete, you must have been battling these urges all your life. How did you manage to last up until the first time you transformed with no dragonstone, and no knowledge that you needed one?”

Kamui said nothing.

“Can I put forth my hypothesis?” Leo asked softly. Kamui shifted her head against him slightly; he panicked for a second, thinking he’d overstepped and that she was about to pull away from him, when he realised that she was nodding.

“You have the strongest heart of anyone I know,” he said simply. “Even after everything you’ve endured… you’ve never become craven, or cynical. Your experiences have tempered you, rather than breaking you. And so, I think… I think that’s why you managed to go for so long without transforming. You’re just too bright, and too gentle, for your draconic urges to hold much sway over you.” Despite the gravity of this moment, a fond smile began to steal its way over his face, and he thanked all the gods that Kamui couldn’t see. “Kamui… you are so much more Mila than Duma.”

Kamui’s shoulders heaved in a gasp at that. The poleyn fell to the ground with a dull clatter; next thing Leo knew, Kamui was clinging to him crushingly, her hands clutching at fistfuls of his coat. Gathering himself from the initial surprise, he responded in kind, wrapping his arm more tightly around her and turning to lean his cheek against the crown of her head. Her hair was slightly waxy after the battle, but the smell of fresh air and melted snow still hung over it, as clear and light as the colour of her wintry curls.

“You need to stop making me sound so much better than I am,” she whispered into the side of his neck.

“Kamui, I don’t embellish. You know I don’t. This is what I honestly believe: that you're strong-willed enough to overcome any threat of degeneration, without having to repress anything.”

“You don’t embellish?” He could feel Kamui shaking in his arms now; his first panicked thought was that he’d made her cry, but then her laughter grew louder. “Gods, have you ever heard yourself talk? You can be more melodramatic than Odin sometimes, honestly.”

“Kamui, I’m an upper-class scholar. When I do it, it’s not melodrama, it’s _eloquence_ ,” Leo riposted primly. Kamui let out a loud snort that would have been endearing, had her nose not been pressed to Leo’s coat at the time. “ _Anyway_. As I say, I don’t think you’re in any danger; and I don’t feel like I’m in any danger when I’m with you. But we’re still going to see the Sage anyway, so you could always ask him for advice on how to prevent this. After eight hundred years, you’d think he could have offered you some more constructive advice on how to stay sane in the first place.”

“Oh gods, the Sage!” Kamui tore herself away from Leo in a rush of cold air, and began frantically searching the floor by her bedroll. “Please, gods, don’t let me have left it back there…”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Something the matter?”

“The Yato! The Fire Emblem!” she cried. “I have a horrible feeling I dropped it when I -”

“You mean this Fire Emblem?”

Kamui turned, slowly, to stare at the blade in Leo’s hand. Her face split into a relieved grin. “Where did you…?”

“I picked it up after you transformed. I wasn’t sure if you meant to keep it or not, but if your intention _was_ to throw it away, you might want to reconsider doing so in front of the man who owns the land you were littering,” said Leo drily. Kamui snorted, as she came over to take it from him.

“Rats, you caught me. I’ll try to be sneakier with my minor acts of delinquency in future.”

Leo opened his mouth to banter back, but his jaw dropped completely when he handed her the broken sword. No sooner had her fingers touched the hilt than a light shone forth from the stones set below the crossguard, the same watery blue as the light that had emanated from Kamui’s dragonstone when she transformed.

“What -”

“Leo.” Kamui’s eyes had fallen to his belt; he followed her gaze downward to see a similar glow radiating off of the stone on Brynhildr’s cover. When he lifted his eyes to Kamui again, the light was dancing in her eyes, shading them from crimson to violet, as she stared unbelievingly at the blade. “I think this is…!”

She both off with an excited gasp as her blade began to shake in her hand. The light brightened to a blinding flash; when it cleared, she was holding an entirely new sword.

It was a curious sort of weapon. The blade’s shape didn’t bear much resemblance to a Hoshidan katana, nor to a Nohrian longsword; it was a broad, flat thing, sharply edged on either side, and its tip tapered in a flared curve to a subtle point, like a lilac-leaf. The crossguard was broad, but short, only extending a little ways over the edge of the blade on either side; it was wrought in the stylised image of a swirling cloud, similar to the scrollwork embossed onto Brynhildr’s cover. The indents in the blade remained, but now three glowing stones pulsed within them. Only one remained empty.

“Lady Kamui?” Mozu’s voice, calling from the cavern doorway. “Is everything okay back there?”

“Better than okay. I think we’ve fixed the Yato,” Kamui answered, with a grin almost as wide as the sword’s new blade. It _was_ a relief, in all honesty. As useful as it would have been to have Kamui the manakete listed among his resources, Leo had seen enough of her swordplay to know that Kamui the fencer was almost as valuable an asset. They could make this work, with or without her transformations; Leo had Kamui, and he had the Fire Emblem, and he had a slowly growing band of comrades. If that inventory had been good enough for Alm once upon a time, then it was damn well good enough for Leo.

They could worry about fusing the Yato with Siegfried in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, like I’m going to make a boss that epic and then let the party dispatch it with a 1-hit KO… no, Fort Dragonfall!Anankos will be back later on in this arc, haha. Not in the next chapter, though: next time around we’ll be checking back in on Hinoka :D
> 
> \- 97 KUDOS?! You guys!!! ;.; Thank you so much for all your support, I still can’t believe ANYONE reads this self-indulgent Fire Emblem-themed D&D campaign pretending to be a fanfic, but I’m so grateful for it every day. But, as always, if you feel like something isn’t working or could be bettered, go ahead and drop me a comment; I want to make this as good as I can for you, so!
> 
> \- I burned my wrist on the oven door while making breakfast this morning, and am reasonably convinced it was karmic backlash for what I did to Kamui in this chapter. Still, these characters have sustained so many burns in this fic that I now know exactly how to deal with one, so… yay, I guess?
> 
> \- Hands down my favourite thing about writing in Leo’s voice is that he gives me a valid excuse to indulge in as much purple prose as I like, and it’ll never look pretentious because I’ll always be able to pass it off as “Leo is the pretentious one, not me.” It’s joyous, haha. That said, I hope Leo’s “Sherlock scans” don’t slow the action of these kinds of scenes down too much: the information he processes in these bits goes through his head in a matter of seconds, but it probably doesn’t seem that way when related with his brand of suffocating verbosity, haha.
> 
> \- Leo’s been using metric and imperial measurements interchangeably in this fic so far, which I’ve never been too happy about, but it has recently been brought to my attention that this is anachronistic for another reason: as it turns out, the metric system wasn’t a thing until 1668. It’s not like I can have him just stick to imperial measurements from now on, either, since his levitation spells depend upon his calculating the mass of whatever he’s trying to shift, so I guess we’re stuck with it… I’m sorry, I’m a disgrace to this family ;;; Still, in my defence, if the game itself can mention towels, bras, and sugar, I think I can get away with throwaway references to metrication, haha.
> 
> \- A lot of Kamui’s mannerisms in dragon form are very feline (dragons really are just giant cats let’s be honest), but I really, REALLY hope the comparison to Siegkat didn’t make it seem too much like Leo views dragon!Kamui as an animal. He absolutely doesn’t; it’s very important to me that the second he knows for certain it’s Kamui, he continues to treat her as Kamui. Like, I’m probably way overthinking this, but the idea of this powerful white man viewing a probably-Asian-looking woman as some sort of pet because she’s transformed into a reptile is a bit too Voldemort-and-Nagini for my liking, haha. But yeah, if you want a masterclass in how to write Leo’s attitude towards dragon!Kamui in a way that’s respectful and in-character, go read My Wife is a Dragon (actually, you need to read that fic anyway if you haven’t already; if you have read it then go read it again, it’s the best!).
> 
> \- The trees Leo conjures in the game are indeed ash trees. Likely this is supposed to be a reference to Yggdrasil, but here’s a fun little factoid: the mountain ash (or rowan, as it’s more commonly known) was historically believed to ward away sorcerers, and was sometimes planted outside one’s front door to protect the house from magic. This is either hilariously inappropriate for Leo or, given how his stats and skills seem to be designed for pitting him against other mages, brilliantly apt. Or both. Yeah, let’s go with both.
> 
> \- “Standing”, “shooting”, and “nothing” are all Elizabethan slang terms; I won’t define them here because I don’t want to lose the teen rating on this fic, so let me just tacitly state that the noun is anatomical, and the verbs concern activities that a person who is assigned male at birth may do on their own or with other people. I find Niles by far and away the hardest character to write; if his dialogue doesn’t seem dirty enough, it’s because I’m a frump who has to go and learn historical swears just to get ideas for innuendoes, haha.
> 
> \- I’m sorry, I’ll never be over what a wasted opportunity Brynhildr was. I mean… it has power over the earth AND gravity! Leo has the powers of both Doctor Strange and every earthbender ever, and what does he use it for? Gardening. Gods, what a nerd.
> 
> \- Thinking about how different the Yato’s forms would look if it fused with the other divine weapons in a different order is really fun; I’ll do a sketch of it at some point probably, but I imagine the form it’s currently taken on looks sort of like a cross between a jian, a spatha, and Sting, haha. The next time it transforms, it’ll go back to being the chainsaw sword we know and love to laugh at, but yeah, designing weapons is so much fun! :D


	20. Temperance and the Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hinoka briefly ponders the physics behind the Tardis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: extremely graphic violence (but hey, it’s a Hinoka Flip-O-Rama chapter, what do you expect). Also I am subsisting upon three hours' rest this day; mayhap I shall edit this chapter anew when I am feeling less slumberous.
> 
> I WARNED YOU ABOUT THE ETERNAL STAIRWAY BRO  
> I TOLD YOU DOG

> _“And Her Divine Radiance spoke thus: ‘Have thy dead cleaned, and laid before me, and I shall shroud them in the flames of mine own breath. Let their flesh be burned away, that time may not ravage them, and my brother may not claim them for his disgraceful army of exploited corpses. For these souls no longer inhabit their earthly vessels, but have long ascended to a higher plane. Freed from the constraints of their mortal forms, they shall no longer know fear nor fury, hunger nor fatigue - in mind and body they shall be at peace, until they return to this world in a new form. Therefore do not weep, but do as I have instructed, and honour ever the lives of the fallen.’_
> 
> _And this did the High Princess do, and ever after we have thus cremated our dead in holy flame, to honour Her Divine Radiance’s accord and to spare their remains the indignity of desecration by the treacherous Dusk Dragon.”_
> 
> \- A scripture from _The Book of Dawn_ , detailing the Dawn Dragon’s instructions to the first High Princess of Hoshido regarding the procedure for Hoshidan funeral rites. A similar passage exists in the _Book of Dusk_ (quoted in the epigraph to chapter 11 of this very treatise), wherein the Dusk Dragon gives his own orders on how the Nohrians should preserve their dead. Just as that scripture remains the basis for the traditional Nohrian funeral ceremony, the burial rites laid out here are still practiced today by followers of the Dawn Dragon’s priesthood, and several elements of the ritual have also become popular in secular funerals on both sides of the Bottomless Canyon. 
> 
> The Hoshidan royal family’s ashes are not laid to rest in such labyrinthine tombs as the Nohrian Hall of Remains, but are buried in the Amanohara Garden, a private cemetery within Castle Shirasagi’s walls. The garden is out-of-bounds to any besides the royal family and the monks and miko who enter to tend the garden, defending it both from weeds and from more supernatural pests. As such, few photographs of the garden have been made available to the public, but it is particularly famed for its canopy of ancient cherry trees, whose sprawling branches stretch to cover the entire space, granting the royal graves protection from the elements by a vast roof of leaves and petals.

 

The sun hadn’t yet risen when Orochi made her way down the garden path, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. The Amanohara garden was pretty enough by daylight, but if you wanted to see it at its best, the trick was to be up with the larks.

She had raised a few eyebrows when she bade the guards good morning on her way out from the keep, though. Apparently most folks didn’t have Orochi pegged as the early-morning type, and it was hard to blame them. It was true that the earth’s magic reserves rose nearer to its surface by night, like the mists that condensed into dew in the morning, and as such most mages worked late shifts; even Orochi herself had once baulked at the thought of being up before noon. But these early starts had been a habit for a very long time, and over the past five years they had become more of a cherished ritual.

“You should come in with me this time,” she suggested, with a conspiratorial wink. “See why she always came out at this time of morning. I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“Orochi, you know that even I am not permitted to set foot in the Amanohara garden,” said Kagerou patiently. “Not unless you’re beset by assassins; which, considering the ninja already guarding this place would end them on the spot as soon as they saw them entering the garden, seems unlikely.”

“Okay, but what if you had to guard me from something else?” Orochi asked.

Kagerou paused. “Something else?”

“Like, I don’t know… a bear.”

“There have been no recorded sightings of bears running wild in the grounds of Castle Shirasagi,” said Kagerou, with a completely straight face. “Ever.”

“Well, what if a dancing bear escaped from a circus?” Orochi shrugged. They had reached the rock garden, which circled the walls of the Amanohara garden as a great grey moat. The path here split into a dotted line of stone slabs, made smooth and flat on top by centuries of fashionably-shod feet bearing down on their surface; they rose from a bed of gravel spread over the ground, like boulders forming a natural bridge across a spring, protecting the monks’ carefully-raked spiral patterns from misplaced feet.

“A… dancing bear.” Kagerou’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly at that; nobody else would have noticed any change in her expression, but Orochi knew she was trying not to laugh. “I don’t think that’s an eventuality we need to plan ahead for. To begin, I think it likely that the guards would see it coming when it reached the gatehouse. And in any case, there are no circuses performing in the city at present.”

“I’m just saying, technically it could happen,” said Orochi airily.

“Then you have my solemn oath, Orochi, as my queen and my dearest friend: if, at any point, you _do_ find yourself in danger of being mauled to death by an escaped circus bear while you’re in the garden, I shall rush to your aid at once, and face whatever consequences that action incurs.”

“Ha, I appreciate the sacrifices you make for my sake,” Orochi grinned. “It’s really too bad you won’t come in anyway, though. I’d love to see your artistic interpretation of the garden.”

“Then describe it to me sometime, and I shall draw it from imagination,” Kagerou suggested. They reached the wall that enclosed the garden, and paused in front of the high arch of the gate. Kagerou stood to attention at one side of the entrance, her back against the wall and her gaze dutifully averted.

“Guess this is where we part ways, then,” said Orochi ruefully.

Kagerou’s mouth quirked, briefly, into a wan little smile. “Do you remember when we used to escort her out here? We would stand guard at either side of this gate, watching the blossoms fall over the wall.”

“I remember,” Orochi sighed. They had come out here every morning, the three of them, since Orochi and Kagerou were young girls; she remembered leaning back against the wall, following the hypnotic swirls in the gravel with her eyes and wondering vaguely if she could get away with sneaking a quick nap in before Lady Mikoto was ready to leave again. “It’s funny… we came out here every morning so she could pay her respects to Lord Sumeragi. I never imagined I’d be doing the same thing for her one day.”

“It still weighs heavily upon me, as well,” Kagerou nodded gravely. “Still, it’s wonderful that you are able to come out here, at least. It must gladden her to hear from you each day.”

“From us,” said Orochi. “I always tell her how you’re doing as well.”

Kagerou’s eyes widened at that for a moment; when her face reverted to its usual neutral expression, it was softer than it had been. “Better that you don’t keep her waiting, then. Dawn is almost upon us.”

“Ah, right, yes! I’ll describe it to you when I get back.” Orochi gathered herself, and heaved the gate open. When she turned back to Kagerou, the ninja had taken out her sketchbook and was making a study of the nearest gravel pattern. She had sketched the rock garden before, quite often: in the Kagerou version, the rocks looked more like human skulls, each one falling down a dark, dizzying whirlpool. Orochi grinned at that, as she turned away to pester the water pump standing by the wall. She filled one of the wooden buckets that had been left there, and set off down the garden.

There were few flowers in the Amanohara garden at this time of year; but then, there were never very many in the spring or summer either. It was mostly a moss garden, the velvety green blanket underfoot carefully cultivated by the miko to prevent it from spreading over the ordered rows of gravestones. But, as always, a canopy of pale sakura bloomed overhead. Sakura was a perennial here: the cherry trees were an even mix of spring- and autumn-flowering varieties, arranged in such a way that the blossoms would always completely cover the garden from overhead. Their pale petals glowed softly in the predawn light; occasionally a few would come loose, and fall to the ground as the closest thing this garden had ever seen to snow.

Orochi paused to admire them for a moment, but kept walking, each step pleasantly light on the springy carpet of moss. This garden must have been a good seven or eight hundred years old, and the grave she was here for was quite far back. Eventually she reached it: a stone monument, marked with the same four names that were written on the sotoba that speared the ground beside it: _Sumeragi, Ikona, Mikoto, Azura._

She set about cleaning the stone, though this was done out of duty rather than necessity: between the monks and the family, the grave was tended at least five times every day. Still, a few stray petals had fallen onto it, so she swept those up (even though it occurred to her that Lady Mikoto would have rather liked them). Once that was done, she set out her offering: the usual incense, and a small parcel of chestnut daifuku, an especial favourite of Lady Mikoto’s. She ladled a last stream of water over the grave; then closed her eyes, and began speaking, in her mind, to those whose ashes lay beneath it.

“Lady Mikoto. Lord Sumeragi. Lady Ikona. Azura.” Orochi bowed to them. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to visit again for the next few days. I’ve told you the details already, but Kagerou and I are setting out for Izumo today, just as soon as Hinoka and Sakura are up. Hopefully Archduke Izana will be able to shed some light on what’s going on with my magic, and why I can’t see anything beyond the end of this winter. Either way, I’ll pick up some of those baby-chick pastries Lady Mikoto liked while I’m there. But yes, I mostly just came to say goodbye, and to reassure you that the girls will be in safe hands while we’re away.” She grinned, then. “Not that there was ever any cause for concern there: they’re tough cookies, both of them. Take after their parents.”

The beat of approaching feet sounded behind her, and fell silent. Orochi started slightly, but did not turn around. A slow smile crept over her face: she’d know the sound of that steady, purposeful stride anywhere.

“Ah, so this is where you were,” said Ryouma, by way of a greeting. At that, Orochi did turn to face him. Her husband was mantled in a heavy, richly-embroidered haori, but she could see the pale hemline of his nightclothes peeking out beneath it; his hair stuck up in the way that it did when he’d just got up, rather than the way he deliberately styled it (though you had to live with him to know the difference). He, too, came bearing water and daifuku. “As I’d hoped.”

“Sorry for disappearing on you while you were asleep,” she cringed. “I just wanted to be sure I’d get a chance to speak to her before we had to head out.”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Ryouma assured her; before adding, a little ruefully, “though I confess I _was_ half-afraid you’d set out already.”

Orochi snorted. “Without my goodbye kiss? I think not. - even if it is like mashing my face against a cactus.”

“Is it?” Ryouma frowned, and ran a hand dubiously over the new growth of bristles on his chin. “Yukimura says it makes me look distinguished.”

“Yukimura’s never tried to kiss you,” Orochi pointed out; then added, as an afterthought, “as far as I know.”

“If you don’t like it, I’ll shave,” said Ryouma simply. Orochi’s stomach gave a lurch of equal parts guilt and fondness, as she realised that, as always, he was perfectly serious.

She sighed, and reached up to stroke his beard; at any rate, it certainly didn’t feel bad under her fingers. “No, I’m just teasing. As cacti go, you’re pretty succulent.”

Ryouma raised an eyebrow. “Was the pun intentional?”

“Hey, you’re learning!” Orochi clapped her hands together gleefully. “We’ll have you cracking knock-knock jokes next.”

Ryouma allowed himself a self-conscious half-smile at that. “Well, I don’t know about that. I’m content enough to just appreciate yours.”

“Ah, well. Orochi is funny enough for the both of us, anyway,” she shrugged. “So were you just looking for me, or…?” Her eyes drifted to the box of daifuku in his hands.

“For the most part. Although I had planned to visit this place today anyway. And on that note, if you’ll pardon the intrusion…” Ryouma turned his attentions to the grave, getting down on his knees to scrub at the stone diligently, even though it was totally spotless already. He was still kneeling as he went through the usual motions, setting his daifuku down carefully beside Orochi’s, and as he bowed his head to pray to all three of his parents.

It was in this moment of solemn silence that the sun finally rose. The coppery light of the dawn filtered softly through the sakura petals, setting them all ablaze, as if the trees’ branches were laden with stars instead of flowers. A few rays peered through the gaps in the foliage, falling down on the garden in sharply-defined beams.

 _This_ , Orochi knew, was why Lady Mikoto liked to be out here for the sunrise; and why Orochi herself had picked up the same habit, on the mornings when she visited this place. It was fact that the entire royal family rested in the Amanohara garden, and it was known that this was the ideal place to commune with their spirits, whether for guidance or for company. But in this hour, there was always something mystical about the place; you could really _feel_ that the people you loved were standing there with you, smiling upon you, protecting you.

Ryouma just barely managed to catch the sight before the gold in the air faded - he must have been praying for a good ten minutes. He did not rise to his feet when he lifted his head; instead he stayed on his knees, taking in the scene in reverent silence. Times like this, Orochi mused fondly, were the reason she had married him. Ryouma was not exactly the most chucklesome man, nor the most sentimental; but he was pious, and earnest, and could appreciate the peace or poignancy or transience of a moment with a quiet keenness one rarely saw in a man his age. His brand of gravity balanced out Orochi’s levity just right, in a way that it wouldn’t have done if he’d been a little gruffer, a little less philosophical: as it was, in moments like this they could float together, without either of them being yanked up or dragged down by the other.

Still, moments like this were just that: moments. This one passed, same as any other; the sun’s rays blanched into the watery light of early morning, and the dawn chorus shattered the silence from the branches above. Ryouma, too, picked himself up, his movements a little stiff after spending so long on the cold earth. Orochi offered him a hand, which he took, clasping it between fingers as frozen as her own must have been.

“It was a long conversation, then?” she remarked brightly.

Ryouma nodded. “You could say that. I had much to ask of them today.”

“Like helping you find the patience to handle Shiro on your own for another week?” she grinned.

“Not a bit of it. He’s proven himself invaluable in my cabinet meetings,” said Ryouma, with a perfectly straight face. “Even the most heated debate becomes civil and composed, if raising one’s voice carries the risk of waking a sleeping infant.”

“Ha, I can imagine. And if all else fails, just fob him off onto Yukimura,” Orochi suggested. “Baby seems to be very fond of his spectacles.”

Even Ryouma snorted at that, but it was a momentary thing. Beyond the cherry branches, the sun went behind a cloud. “I should manage. No, my chief purpose here was to pray for your safety on the journey.”

“Ha, I think there’s a limit to how much trouble the three of us can get into on a week’s vacation,” said Orochi airily. “Biggest danger in Izumo is getting sick from overeating, I’d say.”

“True. But the journey takes at least two days on foot, and…” Ryouma turned from her, to stare northwest. “Well, you were there when Hinoka fought the invisible samurai in the Divine Dragon’s Forest. Since then, there have been some… alarming reports, from the plains surrounding our city. And alarming silences.”

“The Flame Tribe?” Orochi ventured. Ryouma nodded. She gave his hand a light squeeze. “We still don’t know if that’s linked to the invisible samurai’s attacks. They could’ve just decided to go back to isolationism.”

Ryouma shook his head. “Chief Jiinā would have said something if that was his plan, surely. He and I had been corresponding almost weekly. Right up until we left for King Leo’s coronation. And after that… nothing.”

Come to think of it, Orochi hadn’t heard from Rinka in a while either. Granted, the chief’s daughter hadn’t exactly been a prolific letter-writer to begin with, but every so often a parcel would arrive, addressed to Orochi, Oboro and Kamui, and filled with things Rinka had collected for them - usually some combination of furs, herbs and spices native to the peaks of Nitten-sama, flavoured cooking oils, painted masks, intricately-carved ceramic daggers, and a scribbled note telling of the adventures Rinka had been on when she’d found these gifts.

“That… is pretty ominous, yes,” she mused. “Hang on a tick.”

Any diviner worthy of the name always kept at least one pack of cards on hand; Orochi had a pocket sewn into her haori especially for hers. She produced her deck, and began shuffling through them. 

“You’re going to divine the cause of the lapse in communication?” Ryouma frowned. “But I thought your future vision had been sealed?”

“No, I just can’t see anything beyond this winter, or anything to do with whatever’s causing that block in my vision. As far as everything else is concerned, I can still scry with the best of them.” Orochi broke off then, to chant her incantation; when it was done, she held her deck up to Ryouma.

“You know the drill. Ask your question, and take three,” she instructed. Ryouma nodded, and drew his cards carefully, pausing before each selection as if the outcome depended on his choosing the right ones. Of course, even the reading of the cards was almost irrelevant in this case: all that mattered was whether or not Orochi _could_ read them.

“Has the Flame Tribe’s chief severed contact with me for his own reasons, or is he facing some external threat?” he asked, as he drew the last one.

“Let me see.” Orochi took the cards from him, and turned them over. Three of Kagerou’s macabre illustrations loomed before her.

_The Fool. Temperance. The Star._

“What does it mean?” asked Ryouma, bowing his head to examine them upside-down.

“I…” Orochi paused, considering the various meanings of each card. The Fool usually meant madness, but the other two depended more on the context. Temperance could mean just that, but it could also represent initiative, or violence. And the Star…

“It means either death or hope,” said Orochi. “I’m sorry, I can’t work out which it is when the other two cards are so ambiguous. It could be warning us of another war, or telling us that the Flame Tribe doesn’t want to interact with us anymore because they rabidly disapprove of Hoshido’s moral values.” If what Rinka had told her of the Flame Tribe’s culture was any indicator, she’d believe either.

“Forgive me; I must have been too vague in wording the question,” said Ryouma earnestly. Gods, what a dear man her husband was. He put the cards back in the deck, and selected three new ones. “Are the Flame Tribe in any danger?”

Again, Orochi turned over the cards: _The Emperor. The Lovers. Death._

Well, this drawing could go in even more directions than the first: the Emperor usually signified a revelation, but Death rarely foretold a literal death (again, the Star usually came up in those cases); instead, it tended to herald a transformation. The Lovers, meanwhile, could mean anything from marriage, to hidden truths, to an ordeal. In context, the only reading Orochi could think of were that these garbled readings were transforming her life’s work into an ordeal that was driving her mad.

“A revelation of a transformation… will lead to either marriage or hardship,” she attempted. “Don’t suppose you can think of a way that makes sense in this context?”

Ryouma furrowed his brow, considering this for a long moment. Orochi sighed.

“Try one more time?” she suggested. Ryouma did as he was told, and passed her three more cards.

Three identical Death cards glared up at her.

“Okay, this is really weird,” said Orochi flatly. “There’s only supposed to be one in the pack.”

“So I suppose, after all, it must be linked to whatever’s sealing you,” said Ryouma grimly. “As I’d feared.”

“Yeah, you should probably send an envoy over to check on them, or something.” Orochi gave her cards a last flick-through before she put them away again; sure enough, there was only one Death in the deck.

“I was thinking of sending Takumi,” Ryouma agreed. “Under the pretence of escorting Oboro to their village to visit Rinka. If it turns out that the tribe have readopted their isolationist policies, then the misstep is Chief Jiinā’s for not telling us; if there is something more sinister at work here, then those two can handle themselves well enough to weather it, and report back to me.”

“That’s probably the most sensible idea, yeah.” A chilly breeze swept the garden then. Orochi drew a little closer to Ryouma, turning to rest her head on his shoulder. “Ah well, at least you won’t get too bored while I’m away.”

“Neither will you, if those clouds darken any further,” he said grimly, indicating the silvery light filtering through the trees. “Are you sure you’d not rather postpone your departure another day?”

He spoke with a detached composure, as if his concern for her was purely pragmatic; but the tightening of his grip on her hand told a different tale. Orochi laughed fondly at that, and slid her free hand over his chest into a loose embrace. “It’s fine. Whatever’s going on with my magic, it hasn’t affected my ability to predict the weather. Clear skies all day, the cards said.”

 

* * *

 

“What was that you said when we set out? ‘The cards predict clear skies all day’?”

“Okay, so the cards are dirty liars sometimes,” said Orochi airily. “Still, I’ve never known you to complain about getting caught in the rain.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not complaining,” Hinoka shrugged. “I just thought it was funny.”

To be honest, Hinoka actually welcomed the rain. It was an icy downpour that would have left her teeth chattering, if not for the fact that they had been hiking for about eight hours, during which she’d worked up a good sweat; as it was, a bit of cold water was just the thing for her aching muscles. Still, she supposed they would need to rest again soon: Pochi wasn’t complaining yet, but she’d have to change his tack and give him a dry caparison before they got water-damaged. Besides, while Kagerou and Orochi were both holding up well enough, Sakura seemed to be lagging a bit.

Hinoka slowed her pace, falling behind the other two, to give her sister time to catch up. Sakura turned to her briefly, and panted a greeting. The poor girl was obviously exhausted, but not once did she pause her march, sliding her feet over the slick grass in a dogged shuffle.

“Hey, you’re welcome to ride Pochi for a while if you need a break,” Hinoka offered; but Sakura shook her head vigorously.

“He’s, he’s already carrying all our bags and things,” she pointed out, a little raggedly. “And it shouldn’t be much farther to the Eternal Stairway, now.”

Pochi gave a snort that sounded faintly relieved. Hinoka chuckled, and patted his neck.

“Um, d-don’t let me hold you back,” mumbled Sakura. “If - if you want to go ahead of me again, that’s okay.”

“Nah, I could use the company.” It was only half a lie: Kagerou was the only retainer they’d brought with them (as Hinoka had always made a very pointed effort to make sure Archduke Izana never met either of _hers_ ), and while she was definitely someone they could depend on in a crisis, walking between her and Orochi had been starting to make Hinoka feel like a third wheel.

“At least the rain’s nice and cool,” Hinoka remarked, holding up one hand to feel the raindrops drumming against the back of her gauntlet.

“I g-guess that’s one way of putting it,” said Sakura, breathing onto her own hands and chafing them together. It was difficult to tell whether her stutter here was brought on by her usual nerves, or by the cold. “We’ll have to get a c-campfire going as soon as we g-get to the cavern. Otherwise it’s a n-pneumonia risk.”

“Well, the Wind Tribe’s village is pretty close to the bottom of the Eternal Stairway. We could probably just stick it out till we get there,” Hinoka pointed out. She hadn’t thought to write ahead (considering she’d expected a clear enough night to be able to camp out by the roadside), but she was sure Chief Fuuga wouldn’t mind putting them up at Castle Reppu for one night: the day they’d passed through the village during the war had been the first time she had met the Wind Tribe’s chief as an adult, and the first time Sakura had met him at all, but the man had been like an uncle to Hinoka and Ryouma before Father died.

Sakura gave her an odd look. “Um, Hinoka, have you ever… seen the Eternal Stairway?”

Hinoka shook her head. The two of them had only ever been in this part of the world once, during the war. The Wind Tribe’s village, and Izumo beyond it, stood in the shadow of a high cliff, and could only safely be reached on foot by heading down the Eternal Stairway. For Hinoka, this hadn’t been a problem: all she’d had to do was ferry Setsuna to the foot of the cliff on Pochi, fly back up to fetch Azama, go back down again with him, and pull Setsuna out of whatever rabbit-hole she’d fallen down in the two minutes Hinoka had been gone. But Sakura had been travelling with Kamui’s party at that time, and they had taken the stairs.

Sakura giggled at that. “Well, let’s just say they call it that for a reason.”

“Yeah, I figured. Still, we’re going down rather than up, right?” Hinoka gave her shoulder a light, encouraging pat. “Shouldn’t be too bad.”

“You’ll see what I mean when we g-get there…” Sakura bowed her head, so her face was shaded by her travel-hood. Her shoulders shook subtly, in what could have been a shiver or more quiet laughter.

Hinoka found out what was so funny when they reached the entrance to the stairway, and made their way inside. The stone steps stretched on and on, deeper and deeper into the tunnel ahead until they faded out of sight completely. That much she’d expected; like Sakura had said, a path called the Eternal Stairway was hardly going to be a five-minute stroll. But what she hadn’t expected was…

“Wait, why are the stairs going _up?”_

Hinoka backed out of the cave, to take another look at the entrance: a doorway cut into a squat, jutting stone hill, the opening only slightly bigger than Pochi was tall. There was nowhere for the higher steps to _go_.

Orochi’s cackling echoed from inside the cavern.

“What, had you not heard the story of how this place was built?” she asked, when Hinoka wandered back inside, herding Pochi in after her. The pegasus didn’t seem to give a fig about the impossible vastness of the cavern’s inside as he flapped his wings, shaking a few buckets’ worth of rainwater onto his human charges.

“To be honest, I’ve never been that big on history,” Hinoka admitted. She unbuckled one of the packs, and handed her tinderbox out to Kagerou. They could camp out here for a few minutes, she supposed; she’d have to attend to Pochi, anyway.

“You’ll like this one,” Orochi assured her. “Although it’s more legend than history, really. They say the stairway was built by the first wielder of the Fuujin Yumi; one of the founding princesses of Hoshido.”

“Really? Huh, I’d never heard that.” Hinoka looked up from picking Pochi’s hooves. “It’d certainly _take_ a Dragon Vein to make a tunnel that’s bigger on the inside than the outside, I guess. But why do the stairs go up instead of down?”

“W-well, that’s the funny p-part,” put in Sakura, her speech even more shuddery than usual. Hinoka took one of the bedrolls out of their pack, and tossed the blanket over to her; she shot Hinoka a grateful smile, and huddled under it like a nesting bird as she continued. “The story goes that all these lands used to be flat grassland. But then, when Hoshido was first founded, suitors from the southern kingdoms came up here to p-pay court to the princesses. One of them was from… um, was it Izumo?”

“It was always Izumo in the version I heard,” Orochi shrugged; her words flowed away into a happy humming sound, as Kagerou finished lighting the fire. Hinoka was still de-tacking Pochi, and was too far away to get the full benefit of the heat, but she was gladder of it than she’d expected to be: the cold rain had been refreshing when she was walking in it, but now that she was standing still, it felt like her body was freezing over from the insides of her bones outwards.

“Okay,” Sakura nodded gratefully. “The second p-princess had a suitor from Izumo, and he was very p-persistent. And eventually the princess got so t-tired of his advances that she raised these cliffs, and built a road leading through them that always goes uphill, no matter which way you approach it from. Since it was a b-bother getting to Hoshido, and a bother coming back, her suitor didn’t visit so often after that.”

“So one of the founding princesses built a magic staircase, and an entire cliff around it, just to avoid getting married?” Hinoka snorted, as she came and sat down beside Sakura. “Ha, I can kind of relate to this lady.”

“Well, that’s how the legend goes, anyway,” said Orochi. “I’ve met a lot of scholars who swore blind that there was no way it could have actually happened, and regaled me with their long explanations for why it wouldn’t work. But they were all the kinds of guys you’d build a cliff to avoid talking to, so maybe they inadvertently proved it true after all.”

Hinoka and Sakura both doubled over at that, and even Kagerou’s mouth twitched. They sat under blankets in their kosodes, supping on miso soup warmed in a travel kettle, until the fire had dried their outer layers enough for Sakura to be reasonably sure that nobody was going to catch pneumonia (including Pochi, who whinnied happily at Hinoka as she spread his newly-toasty caparison over his back). After that, they packed up their erstwhile campsite, and made to tackle the Eternal Stairway.

Which, just as expected, was very aptly-named.

“Whew, this is a good workout,” Hinoka puffed, after they’d been walking for - gods, how long _had_ they been walking? “I guess the princess didn’t think to put in a secret lever for people who aren’t creepy guys to pull?”

“Ha, don’t tell me _you’re_ getting tired!” Orochi crowed, from further back. “If the mighty Hinoka can’t hack the stairs, then there’s no hope for the rest of us.”

Her words were amusing, but not quite accurate. It wasn’t the stairs themselves that were the problem; honestly, Hinoka had so much pent-up energy in her system these days that running up a never-ending flight of stairs would probably be the most fun she’d ever had. No, if she was tiring of anything, it was the way the tunnel was starting to play with her head. Even after all this walking, the only lights to be found in this place were the glow of the lanterns lining the sides of the stairway. The sensible part of Hinoka knew that the stairs had to have an end, and that it was just too much farther up for them to see it yet, but she still had a mental image of the bottommost stair sliding out and underneath the staircase when they’d passed over it, and flying up to add itself to the steps looming ahead, in an endless chain.

“I’m not. It’s not really the stairs themselves, it’s…”

Hinoka trailed off, as she saw the light above them. Not the daylight shining through the exit; the glow of flames the colour of fresh bruises.

Orochi had recognised it too. She unfurled her scroll, and nodded to Hinoka. Seeing this, the other two readied their weapons as well.

“What is it, sister?” asked Sakura, in an alarmed whisper.

Wordlessly, Hinoka pointed out the will-o’-wisps ahead. The flames had begun floating down the stairs to meet them; Hinoka put up her spear and shifted into a defensive stance.

She just barely saw the sword swinging for her from the side.

Hinoka sprang back from it, throwing up her spear in a hasty counter. She felt, rather than saw, the blow connect with the enemy; the haft of her spear had given it a decent whack, but the blade seemed to have missed entirely.

A chilling scream sounded from behind her. When Hinoka whipped around, a second of these creatures had advanced on Sakura. The girl was clutching at her shoulder, and under her fingers, a dark stain had begun to seep through the fabric of her haori.

Hinoka let out a snarl of equal parts horror and fury, and began to charge down the stairs to her; but she hadn’t taken two steps when the enemy that had attacked Sakura exploded in a burst of water. In its wake, Kagerou’s kunai clattered to the ground. Hinoka nodded her thanks to the ninja, and turned back to her wounded sister.

“Sakura, heal yourself!” she cried, before turning on her heel back to the ghostly samurai who had first ambushed her; it had already recovered from the blunt blow she’d dealt it, and in the corner of her eye she could see the glint of a blade as it made to strike again. This time, Hinoka worked with that, using the light to gauge the position of her opponent’s sword-arm; when it pointed forward, raised to charge her, she brought her spear down and drove it into the creature’s gut.

A third will-o’-wisp floated a few steps above them. The light in the cavern brightened from purple to red, as Orochi’s bull spirit charged into it. The flickering image of a swordsman appeared, just for a moment, on impact. It stumbled backwards, tripping slightly on the stairs, as the force of the blow threw it back, but soon gathered itself and charged forwards again. Kagerou stood on the step above Orochi, guarding her; the ghostly swordsman swung for her, but in the same moment, she sprang up and over its head, and came down on top of it, smashing her full weight into the empty air where its shoulders must have been. The enemy reappeared, even as she was drawing her blade through its throat in a single clean slash.

Still more of these things came drifting down. It was like crushing spiders in their nest: if you took one out, three more showed up in its place. Hinoka squinted at the new arrivals, trying to make out their weapons: one bore an axe, one had yet another sword, and…

“Archer!”

Kagerou had shouted it mostly as a warning to Hinoka; she wasn’t mounted for this battle, but a ranged fighter could still take Pochi out behind them. Well, Hinoka wasn’t having any of that, damn it. She kept charging, onward and upward, and rushed the archer.

Her spear went into its shoulder, even as its arrow went into hers.

Neither blow did much damage; it seemed they’d both thrown each other off. Hinoka snapped the arrow, leaving the tip in to plug the wound, and made to strike again.

A rain of arrows came down over the steps above.

It didn’t take out all their opponents, but the archer melted away, as did a couple of other spirits further back. Hinoka cast a bewildered glance over her shoulder; Sakura was nocking another arrow.

“Where did you learn to do _that?_ ” Hinoka yelled incredulously.

“Takumi,” said Sakura simply; then, with a startled cry, let loose her arrow. The axe-wielder, which had been swinging for Hinoka, stumbled back. “Please be careful!”

Hinoka nodded briskly, and launched herself at the enemy again, This time, she avoided any interactions with the axe, instead leaping up to smash her spear into its skull. She and Sakura had run a fair ways up the stairs by this point; behind them, Orochi and Kagerou had taken out two more of these guys between them. Two were left now: yet another fencer, and a flame further back that didn’t seem to be carrying a weapon - a mage? Probably a mage.

Grinning, Hinoka shifted her spear in her palm, and sped up the stairs to plough into the swordsman; her opponent didn’t even have time to act before she skewered it. Lightning crackled in the mage’s hand, but the spell was never released before its caster, too, fell to Hinoka’s spear.

A jolt shot up the haft of the weapon. The next thing Hinoka felt was her back smashing into the steps below.

“Big Sister!” Sakura was already on her knees beside Hinoka, festal in hand. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“Y-yeah, I feel…” Hinoka sat up; waves of faint cramps still pulsed along her spear arm, and her palm felt like it had been stuck full of pins. But other than that… “I feel great, actually. Sort of… zingy inside. Like I’ve had seven cups of coffee.”

“You should be dead!” said Orochi incredulously. “That was a direct hit from a Thoron spell.”

“Was it?” Hinoka frowned. “I only felt it going up my spear as the mage was dying.”

“Exactly. We still don’t know what those things are, but one thing we do know is that they’re some kind of water spirit. The electricity that one summoned from the spell probably travelled into its remains as it was turning into water. Which then passed onto your _metal_ spear.” Orochi cast a sidelong glance at the spear’s haft, as if she was expecting it to rise into the air and zap them all with lightning bolts while laughing maniacally.

“Huh.” Hinoka followed Orochi’s gaze along the length of her weapon again; her fingers were still clamped tightly around it. The white metal of the blade and guard showed no signs of heat damage, and the wooden haft was still perfectly intact.

Just what had she picked up in the Divine Dragon’s Forest that day?

“Ah, well, I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth,” she shrugged. “Point is, I’m somehow not dead. - and hey, look.”

She nodded towards the stairs ahead. The steps no longer faded into blackness above them, but ended in a clear landing; beyond it, the warm light of the sunset shone through a roughly-hewn doorway.

“We made it to the end!” Sakura cried. “All that running around brought us all the way up, and we didn’t even notice…”

“Well, that’s one way to keep from getting bored walking,” said Orochi wryly. The two of them all but skipped up the last flight of stairs; but Kagerou paused, eyeing the exit suspiciously.

“What is it?” asked Hinoka, when the ninja reached her.

“I think we ought to exercise greater caution than we have been, Lady Hinoka,” she said quietly. “These creatures assaulted us from above, not below.”

“Oh. You think there’s more of them out there?”

But Kagerou shook her head. “More dire than that, milady. Rather, I am inclined to wonder why they were on the Eternal Stairway in the first place. We’ve passed no other people on our travels, living or… otherwise.”

Hinoka considered this for a long moment. “You think they knew we’d come this way? I mean - that whoever’s summoning them knew?”

“I cannot say. I do believe it to be a possibility that it would be wise to plan around; if Lady Mikoto’s murderer is still at large, then I think it unlikely that he would sit on his laurels waiting to be caught.” Kagerou sighed, then. “Forgive me, milady; I did not mean to trouble you with this talk. But keep an eye ever to your back.”

Hinoka swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

She’d already expected that the guy they were searching for would make his move eventually; honestly, waiting for him to act had made her more uneasy than this ambush did. The more alarming question, to Hinoka’s mind, was how he’d known that they were going to be here, at this time. They hadn’t written ahead of their coming to anyone besides Archduke Izana himself, and the only people back home who knew where they were headed were Ryouma, Takumi, and Yukimura. And her own retainers, she supposed, but they wouldn’t have blabbed that information to some random stranger, surely; they were the flakiest people she’d ever met, and had the attention span of a squirrel, but they weren’t idiots.

No, whoever knew they would be here had also known that they would be there when they stormed Kazama’s fortress. She had wondered, at the time, what the invisible samurai had wanted there; now that she knew, it seemed so damn obvious that she wanted to box her own ears for not guessing sooner.

Mother’s killer knew Hinoka was coming for him, and he was watching every step she took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, I did go ahead and take a sabbatical for the latter part of February, but I’m ashamed to admit that... I spent very little of it writing ;;; Still, in my defence, I spent most of that time drawing and designing charms (which I expect to open preorders for sometime next month probably!), so at least I wasn’t being completely unproductive haha.
> 
> \- Hey, remember that one author’s note where I said I planned to cover Hoshidan burial traditions “in one of next month’s chapters”? You know, the one back in SEPTEMBER? Welp, here we are half a year later, wink wonk ^^; Still, better late than never, right?
> 
> \- The Amanohara scene is one I’ve had in the works for as long as the Hall of Remains scene - I guess the me of three years ago had a fascination with graves for some reason, haha. Originally, it was written from Hinoka’s POV rather than Orochi’s; it was actually the scene I planned to introduce her in. Glad I changed it, though: the Hinoka version was basically just her talking to the grave alone and then running into Takumi, who then regaled her with several paragraphs of exposition, which… yeah, would have been even less fun to read than this version (at least this one passes the Bechdel test at the beginning--), haha.
> 
> \- Azura’s being named on the family grave is mostly a symbolic gesture: obviously, her ashes aren’t actually buried under it (because she’s buried under a “CAUTION: WET FLOOR” sign-- *shot*). Mikoto and Ikona both share the grave though; people’s headcanons for their dynamic tend to vary a lot, and are always super fun to read, so mine is that Ikona was kind of a mom-friend to Mikoto, which is exactly what she needed after losing her home and her family, so the two of them grew to be pretty close. Ikona also took her on as a retainer to help her assimilate into the court (and give her a respectable excuse for being there in the first place; although, sadly, it didn’t do anything to dampen the rumours that she was Sumeragi’s mistress in the early days). My other headcanon is that while Sumeragi fell in love with Mikoto at first sight, part of what drew her to him was the way they supported each other and the kids after Ikona died. Haha idk, I just like imagining these two mums chilling together in the afterlife, watching their kids go about their lives and cheering them on (I’m not saying they place bets on how long it’s going to take Kamui to finally get with Leo, but that’s exactly what I’m saying).
> 
> \- Ryouma grows a beard to emulate Sumeragi after the events of both Birthright and Revelation. This is not my headcanon, this is an actual historical fact referenced in several of the primary sources I referred to when I was researching this fanfic (which is apparently also a historical novel because the meta of this story is really inconsistent... idk, there is a fourth wall here but it’s made of plexiglas).
> 
> \- Orochi’s divination cards are based on the various possible interpretations of the tarot, which vary depending on which version you’re using. It feels like a cop-out, but eh, I couldn’t find a reference on any other branches of cartomancy no matter how hard I searched, so I just had to work with what I had :(
> 
> \- “Third wheel” is technically kind of pushing it a bit, since two-wheeled carts weren’t a thing until the 17th century and rickshaws weren’t a thing until the 19th; let’s just headcanon that Yukimura once designed a puppet that ran on two wheels and had an extra backup wheel, and that was what Hinoka was comparing herself to (I’m well aware that nobody’s going to care if I use expressions that aren’t totally period-accurate, but, well… I like having an excuse to talk about the origins of words and phrases haha).
> 
> \- Okay so the game is actually incredibly unclear on how the Eternal Stairway actually works: in Birthright, the party is shown getting to Izumo by going up the stairs, but then in Conquest they get to Hoshido by… going up the stairs. Initially I was going to just pick one version and stick with that, but then I had a conversation with the excellent sacredsymbol821, where we joked that the stairs run on some kind of magic that makes them turn around to head upwards regardless of which direction you approach them from (and were built to keep Izana’s ancestors from annoying Takumi’s too often), and then I was like… well, it’s the only 100% canon-compliant explanation, so I had to put it in haha.
> 
> \- Also apparently this fic has over 100 kudos now?! WHY. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING. Y'all need to stop being so much nicer to this fic than it deserves, thank you so much!!! ;.;


	21. Moments in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which anything can happen in the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: a very macabre description of a dead body. I’m sorry, you guys, there’ll be a lot of that going around from here on out probably :(  
> I'm also sorry for the length of this chapter; I swear I tried to cut it down in editing, but for every word I removed, five more suddenly, magically appeared without my input. Also, fun fact: if this reads like half of it was written in one sitting by a person with a concussion, that’s because it was! Yeah, maybe don’t write 6,000 words in one sitting when you have a concussion; that’s just a little free writing tip for you haha ;;;;;;;

> _“Of all the money that e’er I had_
> 
> _I spent it in good company_
> 
> _And all the harm that e’er I did_
> 
> _Was done to shield those dear to me_
> 
> _Each broken blade, each shattered heart_
> 
> _Commends me to the Dragon’s hall,_
> 
> _So shroud me now in frosts of sleep,_
> 
> _Goodnight and joy be to you all.”_
> 
> \- The first verse of _Frosts of Sleep_ , a Nohrian folk song traditionally sung at the funerals of warriors who die in battle. The “Dragon’s hall” mentioned in the lyrics is a reference to the belief held by the Dusk Dragon’s worshippers that if they demonstrate valour and might on the field, and act according to the principles of the chivalric code in every other area of their lives, then their souls will be welcomed into the Dusk Dragon’s own hall when they die, there to drink with their god and the most heroic figures of Nohrian history, while they await the coming of Fimbulvetr and Ragnarok.
> 
> The song has been a part of Nohrian funerals for centuries (records mention its being sung at Prince Xander’s funeral in 1318), but as the country’s governance gradually became less militaristic, a process that first germinated under Leo II’s regime, military funerals have become largely ceremonial, and tend now to be held for figures of state and officers of law enforcement, rather than actual soldiers. As such, common knowledge of the song’s true origin has faded, and much of the general public now incorrectly attribute its composition to a popular singer who released a cover of the song in 2011.

 

Once again, Laslow was alone.

As it turned out, the list of chores Lord Leo had left him wasn’t anywhere near as long as he’d expected it to be. Tending to the botanical samples had taken minutes, and Siegkat had flounced off in search of a nook to nap in as soon as she’d finished her breakfast. Laslow had even given the king’s quarters a quick spit-and-polish (minus his bedchamber, of course: Lord Leo had expressly forbidden his retainers from touching anything in there without permission), but “quick” was very much the word to be emphasised - as much as His Grace didn't keep his rooms very tidy, he was quite particular about keeping them clean, which is not the same thing.

Now Laslow sat on the desk, kicking his feet idly in the air as he pondered what to do with himself next. It was still only quarter past ten in the morning, and he had the rest of the day to himself until it was time to give Siegkat her dinner. He wasn’t sure what to do with that time, besides knowing that he didn’t want to spend it in here: without Odin’s theatrics, the king’s quarters were a bit too quiet for his liking. He glanced out of the south-facing window; they must be halfway to Macarath by now.

Vaguely, he wondered if Selena would be free today, and whether it was worth asking. Probably not, he supposed ruefully; Lady Camilla was still overseeing the preparations for the solstice feast, and the work kept both the princess and her retainers so busy that Laslow saw even less of Selena these days than he usually did. He’d offered to stop by and help with the work, of course, but Selena had very sweetly assured him that she would manage on her own.

Well, she had snapped at him not to get fresh with her while she was trying to do her job. But she had snapped at him in a very sparky, melodious way.

Still, it wasn’t as if he had anyone else he could spend his day with. Peri’s family had relocated to their country estate after what happened to Lord Xander, and most of his friends from the Knight Academy had either died in the war, or retired to Macarath for their health. On another day, Laslow might have gone out for tea, and worried about who to invite along with him when he reached the patisserie, but today was different. He wasn’t sure if it was the shortening daylight hours, or worrying after Odin, or just the coming of the solstice night, with all the emphasis that placed on spending time with one’s family; either way, he had a feeling that this rare spot of free time was one that he ought to pass with a friend.

With that in mind, he got up and set out for the aviary. In the absence of human friends, feathered ones would just have to do.

The hallway leading from the royal family’s quarters down to the throne room had been the first part of the castle to be decorated for the solstice. Wreaths of yew, shot with silver ribbons and frosted over with a layer of conjured ice, hung on every door. A constellation of floating candles twinkled overhead, lit with flames that glowed a wintry blue. Still further above, the ceiling-beams were draped with a canopy of mistletoe and wild ivy. This was mostly the king’s handiwork, which the king had very reluctantly supplied at Lady Camilla’s insistence earlier this week.

“If you’re planning to do your usual pre-party disappearing act, you can at least do enough for me to _say_ you helped to plan the feast,” she’d said, with a devilish gleam in her violet eye.

“I’ll be back for the feast. - and I’ll have you know that I haven’t disappeared before any sort of formal event since I was fourteen,” His Grace had protested; but he’d still put a lot more effort into the decorations than anyone had asked him to. It had been mesmerising to watch each branch appear, curling organically out from the wood it was wrapped around, and then to watch the little crystals of frost forming over the leaves as Odin set to work with his Fimbulvetr tome.

Equally interesting was the story behind the choice of decor, one which Lord Xander had explained to Laslow in happier times. In Nohr, hanging mistletoe over a door on solstice night traditionally signalled that this was the entrance to a place where no weapons were to be drawn; where folk of all creeds and cultures could wait together for the long night to end, in the knowledge that no fighting would break out, for as longs it took for the mistletoe to fade. The very sight of the snowy berries was sweetly nostalgic, too. Mistletoe was also used in the Ylissean winter festival, but for a different purpose; although when Laslow had suggested engaging in _that_ particular tradition for old times’ sake - purely out of homesickness, of course - Selena had only pinched his ear, and pointed out that the rule only applied to mistletoe that had been cut with a golden sickle.

The quiet of the leafy hallway was gently swatted away, by the sound of footsteps and quiet chatter from the stairs leading up from the throne room.

“Do you think she’ll be up here?” A child’s voice, with a distinct accent; this would be little Prince Shigure, Laslow supposed. Sure enough, the boy’s head popped up in the stairwell, closely followed by Lord Kaze’s.

“I’d imagine so,” Lord Kaze began to reply, but he fell silent upon seeing that they were not alone; while his face stayed pleasantly neutral, a hint of steel crept into his gaze. Laslow’s eyes caught the sudden flash of a blade in his hand, though the hand itself did not appear to have moved at all. It was a neat trick; Laslow wondered how it was done.

“Ah - good morning, Lord Shigure,” he said aloud, swooping down into a florid bow. It wasn’t a bow after the Hoshidan or Nohrian styles, having been rehearsed for curtain calls rather than court. Shigure returned it with a nod that sent his mop of blue curls swishing forwards like a wave; but he also shrank back behind his father a little, eyeing Laslow timidly from behind a curtain of his hair.

Well, that was a familiar image. He could grow out of it, given the right advice on how to cope.

“Good morning, Mister…” The little prince trailed off with a frown. “Um, I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”

Laslow chuckled, and dropped into a crouch, addressing the child from his own eye level. “It’s Laslow. Are you looking for Lord Leo? He’s not here.”

“No, we came to see Lady Camilla,” said Lord Kaze mildly. The knife had gone away again; Laslow supposed the wary fellow must have recognised him from the coronation.

“Ah, now there I _can_ make myself useful. I hear Lady Camilla’s cutting greenery for the rest of the decorations today. So you’ll probably find her out in the grounds somewhere.” Selena had ranted to Laslow about this at some length, over breakfast that morning: reforging the Fire Emblem was all very well, she’d said, but at the very least Lord Leo might have grown them some more ivy before he’d left, if only to spare Selena a trek through the snow.

“Ah, thank you.” Lord Kaze bowed his head, in a swift, fluid motion, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “All right, Shigure, we’d better go back and fetch your coat if we’re going outside…”

He made for the door to their apartment, but Shigure did not follow him. “Um, I think I left it in Aunt Kamui’s room.”

Lord Kaze paused. “When did you ever have your coat on in there?”

“Well, Miss Mozu and I were playing Bear Hunt. I was being the bear.”

“Ah, I see,” said Kaze; he spoke to his son as calmly and seriously as if he was addressing an adult, and there was only the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes. Laslow’s own self-control was a bit lacking by comparison; fortunately, he managed to pass it off as a coughing fit. “Well then, I guess we have to make a detour.”

Father and son started back down the stairs, little Shigure clinging to a fistful of Lord Kaze’s sleeve. For a moment, Laslow stood and watched them from the landing, a bittersweet smile of his own playing at the corner of his mouth. Feeling his eyes on them, Lord Kaze paused mid-step, and looked up.

“Er - is it all right if I chum you down to the throne room?” asked Laslow sheepishly. “You caught me on my way to the aviary.”

Prince Shigure’s mournful little face lit up at that. “Oh, we were there this morning. I wanted to see if my uncle - not Uncle Leo, Uncle Takumi - I wanted to see if he’d written me back, and he hadn’t. But I got to play with the birds, so that was fun…”

Well, this was a far cry from the shy boy who had been hiding behind his father’s legs just a few minutes ago. It was hard to believe that he wasn’t really related to Lord Leo: once you got either of them talking, there was no stopping them.

“Well, that answers that,” said Lord Kaze wryly. “We wouldn’t mind the company, but if his talking starts to grate, please feel free to excuse yourself and walk ahead.”

“What is ‘grate’?” asked Shigure; he cocked his head to one side, face bearing an expression very like the look you’d see on Siegkat when she was wondering where her catnip mouse had gone.

“Ah.” Lord Kaze’s lips pressed into a tight line, as he realised what he'd got himself into. “‘Grate’ means -”

“It means very good,” put in Laslow hastily. This seemed to appease the boy; he turned away again and hopped down the next few steps ahead of them, like a little blackbird, humming quietly to himself.

“Thank you,” muttered Lord Kaze. Laslow muffled a chuckle into his knuckles.

“That’s the trouble with kids. Even when it looks like they’re not listening, they’re pretty much guaranteed to repeat whatever you say in front of them later.” Laslow should know; he might not be a parent, but for a while, he’d been one of the older ones in a family of thirteen.

“I should say so,” Kaze nodded ruefully. “One of my sisters-in-law accidentally taught him the word ‘shit’ while he was helping her in the stables. He didn’t ask her what it meant until dinner that night; at which point she also taught him ‘dammit’.”

Laslow laughed aloud at that; Shigure turned to glance over his shoulder at them. “What’s funny?”

“Ah - nothing, nothing,” gasped Laslow, wiping his eyes. “I’m just quite a cheerful fellow, is all.”

“That’s like Aunt Orochi,” said the prince sagely. “She laughs at nothing sometimes too.”

Ouch. Was that supposed to sound as damning as it did?

“That wasn’t very polite, Shigure,” Lord Kaze chided.

Laslow shook his head. “Not to worry. There’s something rather charming about the brutal, brutal honesty of small children.”

They had reached the door leading out to the throne room now; it opened with a creak like nails on glass. Laslow had once suggested oiling it, but both Odin _and_ Lord Leo had been aghast at that suggestion (“It’ll lose all its character!”), so the squeak was there to stay.

The throne room, too, had been spruced up for the solstice, although there hadn’t been as much that needed doing to it. A layer of frost covered the roses climbing the walls; the rows of trees lining the carpet that led to the throne were draped with more silver ribbons. The doorways were already framed with garlands of ivy year-round (well, as of this autumn), but a few clusters of mistletoe and yew grew in amongst them now.

Prince Shigure darted to the middle of the room, turning slowly on the balls of his feet with a nimbleness Mother would have praised, to take the scene in through eyes full of stars; but beside Laslow, Kaze’s face was even graver than it was normally.

“Everything all right?” asked Laslow, legitimately concerned. Lord Kaze nodded absently, but did not turn around. His eyes remained fixed on the throne - no, on the steps leading up to it.

Laslow sucked a cringing breath in through his teeth. Of course he’d heard the story of why Lord Shigure had come to Nohr in the first place. Not just the true story - that, as the rightful prince of Valla, Lord Leo wanted to keep an eye on the boy, in case Mister Anankos turned on him next - not only that story, but the one the king had put about as a cover: that Shigure was the son of his dead sister, making him the legitimate heir to the throne; a more legitimate heir than Leo himself was, even. The story was a lie, but the details of Lady Azura’s fate had been all too real. She had died in this room, shortly after King Garon was defeated and Anankos expelled from his body. They said she’d been running in the vanguard for that fight, glued to Lady Kamui’s side: when the battle ended, she’d have been right below the throne.

Vaguely, Laslow remembered the night they had said goodbye to Father. It was something he could _only_ remember vaguely; he’d been very tiny when he’d kissed that laughing, raggedy man goodbye and watched him set off with the other fathers, never in that world to see him come back. Laslow didn’t recall much else about that day, only little things. How eerily still everything had been, as they stayed indoors and waited for news. How Mother had tried to treat it like a normal day, all strained smiles and comfort food, even as her eyes kept wandering back to the window and her hand to the hilt of the dagger poking out from under the waistband of her trousers. How relieved they both were when they saw the man coming up the garden path, until he’d come close enough to see that it was not Father, but Uncle Frederick. How tightly Mother had held Laslow that night, clinging to him as if she was afraid he’d disappear too.

Yes, it wasn’t a day he’d forget in a hurry, despite his best efforts. His stomach gave a twist of pity now, and he felt he ought to say something; but how would Kaze take to being comforted by a man he’d basically just met?

“I’m sorry,” he said; not the most eloquent words for the situation, but it was better than nothing. At that, Lord Kaze did turn to him, regarding him from under raised eyebrows.

“What do you have to apologise for?” he asked, though something in his tone whispered that he understood just fine.

“Well - she fell in a battle against the Nohrian army,” Laslow pointed out quietly. “In this room. It… can’t be pleasant to be reminded of that. So I’m sorry.”

“She fell after defeating King Garon,” Kaze corrected delicately. His eyes moved back to the spot on the steps, but he continued addressing Laslow. “Don’t apologise for things you had no hand in yourself.”

“Right you are,” mumbled Laslow.

An awkward silence descended.

Laslow cleared his throat. “You know… the solstice celebrations are about honouring all your family - not only the people who are still alive. And some folks here believe that on the long night, the spirits of the dead come back to check on the people they care about.” This was another thing he’d picked up from Lord Xander; although he wasn’t sure if it was a real Nohrian tradition, or just something the prince had made up to console Lady Elise when the first Siegkat had died.

“And you, Laslow?” Kaze’s voice was perfectly level, his face illegibly neutral. But still his gaze remained fixed on that one spot. “Do you believe that?”

“I…” Laslow paused. Even if the story was true, his parents would not be with him this year, any more than they had been here for the last eight solstices he’d spent in this country. They were where they always were: alive and well, and waiting for him in his true homeland. But there were others in this country, whom he had come to see as family too. He swallowed, and cracked a rueful smile. “I’d like to believe it.”

Lord Kaze let out a soft, breezy sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “It’s a comforting thought, isn’t it?” He turned his gaze away, and strode to the door, motioning to Lord Shigure to follow. “Nearly there. Come on, Shigure.”

They left the throne room, turning out onto the hallway. It was a good deal less quiet out here, the corridor a bustling weave of patrolling knights, and servants finishing up the morning’s cleaning, and ladies draped in the year’s new winter fashions (neatly tailored, bell-sleeved confections in soft wool, an everyday variation on the gown Lady Camilla had worn at the coronation).

As usual, it was the ladies in particular that drew Laslow’s attention. What was decidedly unusual was that, on this day, every one of them (well, all save for one willowy brunette, in a dress embroidered at the hem with a pattern of purple violets) immediately looked round when he approached. Their lovely faces lit up as he passed. A few of them openly gawked.

Gods, was this really happening? Laslow pinched himself a few times, surreptitiously, under the pretence of fixing his cuff; normally, when he got this much attention from the fairer sex, the moment would end up being ruined when he looked down and realised he didn’t have any trousers on. But this time it wasn’t a dream - these girls were really looking at him, and every one of them looked happy to see him. As much as he wanted to revel in this moment, he began to feel his own face growing as hot as theirs; but he tamped the embarrassment down, and returned their smiles gleefully.

Then the whispering began.

“Shh, look, it’s Kaze -”

“Gods, _look_ at him…”

“Too bad he has his kid with him…”

“Are you kidding? Handsome, mysterious, _and_ a good father; he’s the total package!”

“Oh, that sorrowful look in his eyes…”

“Well, of course he’s sorrowful, he’s pining for his lost love -”

“Huh, maybe he’d better find himself a new one…”

“Ha, where can I apply for the post?”

“Shut up, shut up, he’ll hear you…”

Laslow turned, very slowly, to glance sidelong at Kaze, trying hard not to let the flare of disappointment and resentment show on his face. To his credit, the man of the hour didn’t seem to be enjoying the attention at all; in fact, he looked as if he was trying to decide whether it would be a good idea to revisit his ninja training and disappear. His discomfort only became more obvious as the bolder ones began to approach him directly, bearing gifts of sweetmeats and knit scarves, thrusting these offerings into Kaze’s arms before he had the chance to turn them down. None of them so much as looked at Laslow, and even poor little Shigure went largely ignored.

When the three of them reached the end of the hall, and turned off down the gallery leading to the grand staircase, the poor chap was balancing a precarious tower of presents in front of him as he walked.

“Need any help with that?” Laslow offered lightly.

“No need, I’ll manage,” Kaze grunted, in a strained tone that betrayed how heavy the pile actually was. One small box fell from the top, which Laslow caught; it proved to be a box of mendiants. Vaguely, Laslow mused that these had always been a particular favourite of Lord Xander’s.

“They gave us an awful lot of stuff,” Shigure observed. “Are we going to carry it all back up the stairs?”

“No, I’ve a better idea,” said Kaze, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial half-whisper. “We’re headed to your Aunt Kamui’s quarters anyway, so why don’t we leave some of these things as a surprise for her and Mozu and Jakob to come back to?”

“Yes, very good!” Shigure nodded emphatically. “And - and we could give some to Mr. Gunter and Miss Nyx as well.” He made a face. “Maybe she’ll be less grumpy if we give her candy.”

“Don’t talk that way about your elders, Shigure,” Kaze chided; though not very sternly.

“Honestly, I’d give my left hand for that kind of attention,” Laslow sighed.

“Are you left-handed too, Mr. Laslow?” asked Shigure; before kneeling to rummage through the pile. “Ooh, they gave us chalk candy.”

Laslow chuckled. “No, I’m not left-handed. But there wouldn’t be much point in getting that many loving letters if I couldn’t write nice replies to all of them, would there?”

“Well,” said Kaze, as he gingerly lowered the mountain of gifts to the floor, “in that case, please help yourself to anything you like. I daresay you’ll appreciate it more than I could.”

Laslow scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “I suppose those comments about your wife were a bit insensitive, now that you mention it. But they probably meant well.”

“I know. I’m just… unused to it.” Kaze sighed ruefully. “I often received these kinds of parcels in Hoshido as well, but back home we tend to be less… verbal about our feelings. I didn’t even know that these gifts were a mark of romantic interest in me until Lady Kamui explained it. And now that I do know, I take no pleasure from it; only guilt that I cannot return any of these women’s feelings.”

Laslow snorted. “Isn’t that always the way?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing, just… thinking about an old friend. I took him out on the town as my wingman once. He wasn’t at all keen on going, but he ended up getting more attention than I did.” It was a little bittersweet to talk about; honestly, he’d never have expected to miss Gerome as much as he did. Gods, pining for absent friends was becoming a pattern today, wasn’t it?

“Welp,” Laslow shrugged, then. “If you were serious about the offer, is it okay if I take these?” He gave the box of mendiants a little wave.

“By all means,” said Kaze; he honestly sounded a bit relieved. “Are you sure that’s all you want?”

Laslow nodded. “I know a guy who can’t get enough of them.”

The two men exchanged adieux, and went their separate ways; Laslow liked to think that they’d parted as friends. He walked the rest of the way to the western wing of the castle in an easy silence, and the knowledge that he would always find people to fill that silence when he needed them to, if he only looked in the right places.

He had reached the staircase leading to the aviary tower now; he passed it by without a second glance, and continued down the corridor and out the door.

 

* * *

 

A rattle of the box indicated that there were probably about five or six mendiants in there. Laslow would leave a couple as an offering to Lord Xander, he decided, and then he and the Crypt-Keeper could share the rest. Laslow got on fairly well with the old fellow, in the same way he got on with the shopkeepers at his favourite market stalls: after all Laslow’s visits to his lord’s grave, they knew each other well enough to get a good bit of banter going whenever they met, but not quite well enough to have learned each other’s names.

The Hall of Remains was a great dark cave, cut directly into the side of the deep crater that formed a natural wall around Castle Krakenburg. The tunnel was blocked off, about seven feet in, by a heavy iron gate. Near the entrance, a second, smaller door had been cut into the cavern wall, which opened onto the snug, warren-like room that was the Crypt-Keeper’s office. Laslow knocked smartly at this door now.

No answer.

Laslow waited a moment; sometimes the old man took a while to get up from his chair, if his trick knee was playing silly buggers (although there would usually be more groaning happening on the other side of the door if that was the case). When the silence persisted, he rapped at the door again, louder this time.

Nothing. Experimentally, Laslow tried the handle, although he didn’t really see the point: given his line of work, the Crypt-Keeper was very particular about locking doors behind himself.

Except, this time, he hadn’t been. The door opened without so much as a squeak of the hinges.

As usual, the first thing that hit Laslow when he walked in was the smell. There was a distinctive smell to the Crypt-Keeper’s office: a mildewy brew composed of the dusty smell of the stone walls around him, the earthy smell of the thick, black coffee the Crypt-Keeper seemed to live on, and the smell of old age that always clung to the man himself.

None of these smells wafted through the doorway this time. This time, Laslow smelled only one, metallic stench; it hung in the air as thickly as it pooled, half-congealed, over the floor.

“Gods, what _happened?”_ he muttered aloud.

The Crypt-Keeper had been very thoroughly gutted, hacked clean in two just below the ribcage. His torso lay almost at right-angles to his legs; his eyes were still open, and stared glassily up at Laslow from the floor. Laslow made it a point not to look too closely at the wound; the smell of blood was making him gag enough as it was.

Cautiously, he stepped into the room properly, his hand coming to rest on the hilt of his sword. There was no sign of anyone else in the room, nor of a murder weapon; a slash as clean as that suggested a katana, or perhaps a very sharp axe, but the only blade he could see was a letter-opener on the Crypt-Keeper’s desk (and a perfectly clean one, at that).

Still, he mused, as the shock began to fade and his wits came back to him, it would be a bit silly to expect the culprit to still be here anyway. The blood wasn’t fresh, and (here he forced himself to look, briefly, at the body) neither was the slice that had spilled it. Whoever had done this, they must have come in the night - but there were guards stationed at the other end of the bridge! Laslow himself had good-morninged them as he passed. How would a murderer have managed to get in and out unseen, with the bloody weapon in hand?

Unless… oh. Oh, gods.

Much like his friend on the floor, Laslow found his line of thought sliced into two equally disturbing pieces. Firstly, if a Vallite soldier had done this (and he’d bet good coin that it was), then the odds were also good that they were still there; perhaps there were more of them, even. Anankos’s forces were inside the castle, even now.

Secondly, they’d had cause to kill the Crypt-Keeper. For whatever reason, Anankos had targeted him before anyone else, any more obvious targets - before Lord Shigure, or Lady Camilla, or even Laslow and Selena themselves. But why? What could the Crypt-Keeper have that Anankos would want?

A stomach-turning thought occurred to Laslow then.

Swallowing down the urge to retch, he knelt down beside the Crypt-Keeper’s legs, and lifted the old man’s hips gingerly to inspect his belt. The ring of keys, that had always jangled at his waist, was gone.

Laslow’s eyes narrowed. He rose again, and left the room, turning his attentions to the gate; the great, heavy gate that led to the tombs of eight hundred years’ worth of dead kings. In his heart, he already knew what was about to happen, but still he steeled himself and pushed, hoping against hope that he had guessed wrong.

The door to the hall of the dead swung open.

Laslow sucked a stricken breath in through his teeth. Whatever Mr. Anankos wanted, they were probably about to find out. He would be searching the tombs even now; but who would his puppet be this time? Would he settle for King Garon again, or would he treat himself to some legendary warrior - to Siegfried, or Camilla III, or…

Or, perhaps, he had come to visit the same tomb Laslow had.

Laslow allowed himself to breathe, properly, at that thought. Perhaps it wasn’t another puppet Anankos had come for. Perhaps his next move was simply to try to prevent Lady Kamui from making hers.

Still, if it _was_ the sword he was after, then his failure to find it in the tomb would alert him to where it really was, and what its current bearer planned to do with it. Lord Leo and Lady Kamui’s party would have reached the Woods of the Forlorn by now, and that wasn’t exactly a nice spot for a picnic, even without Anankos harrying them.

Laslow left the tunnel, and turned his gaze to the horizon in the south.

“Stay safe out there, Odin,” he muttered.

 

* * *

 

“So then my aunt suggested we set our own vessel aflame -”

“You know, Odin,” remarked Jakob drily. “The more I hear about this aunt of yours, the more inclined I am to wonder if she’s quite right in the head.”

“Be nice, Jakob,” said Kamui sternly; although, in truth, it was easy enough to understand why he was grumpy. They had set out into the woods at first light, two hours ago: in another hour or so, the sun would set, and there still didn’t seem to be an end to the shadows cast by the trees. Besides, if Jakob’s mind was in the same place as Kamui’s currently was, he was probably fighting hard to avoid remembering what straits they had been in the last time they were here. Approaching the woods from the opposite side, using roads they’d never travelled before, had been an adventure; but now the trail they trod was starting to look familiar, and Kamui had begun to remember things she’d fought hard to repress. Memories of walking this thorny path in the dark, so soon after losing Flora…

Still, it wasn’t fair to take that bad mood out on Odin; though he took it in good enough humour. “You’d not be the first to wonder that, Sir Jakob! Nor the last, I’d wager. But as I say, she doused our ship in kindling water, and set it ablaze…”

While Odin continued regaling the others with his tall tales of his family’s exploits, Kamui turned her attentions back to her own favourite means of entertaining herself on this journey: watching Leo clear them a path through the walls of tangled branches. Not only because watching Leo in any situation was becoming a favourite pastime (although she had to concede that the way his pale hair glowed in the murky half-light of the forest _was_ rather mesmerising), but also because there was something oddly satisfying about watching each briar curl neatly back at his coaxing. It was like watching the procession of an elven king in a fairytale, the trees themselves bowing down to him as he passed.

The branches immediately ahead of him stayed put now, though, as he gently closed Brynhildr and took out the map again. A ripple of panic went through Kamui at that, and she urged Éowyn forward, silently praying that he was just double-checking it for his own peace of mind: Leo’s more scatter-brained tendencies were endearing in most settings, but nobody much liked to think about being lost in the Woods of the Forlorn this close to nightfall.

“Are we going the right way?” asked Kamui, as she caught up with him. Startled by her sudden appearance, Leo let out a sound that was neither elven nor kingly, and could really only be described as a squeak.

“We’re not headed in the direction of anyone who could treat me for cardiac arrest, no,” he retorted. “But I _think_ we’ll reach our destination just after dusk, if we keep moving the way we have been.” He folded away the map again with a satisfied nod. “Of course, that’s assuming nothing goes wrong while we’re here, and I’m fully expecting something will.”

“Well, you’re the one who’s always telling me how diabolically lucky I am. Maybe that’ll be enough to cover the rest of you.”

“We can only hope,” Leo sighed. “Regardless, in answer to your original question: yes, we are going the right way. Rest assured, I’ve come to know these woods rather well.”

“Brilliant,” said Kamui, and meant it; though her stomach voiced a loud objection. “Er, but d’you suppose we’ll have time to stop for food at some point?”

Leo snorted; even in the shadows, his smirk lit up his entire face. “A quick break, perhaps. But I have a particular spot designated for that, and it’s still a little further ahead. Think you can hold out until then?”

Kamui nodded, and the smirk brightened into a genuine smile. They rode together in easy silence, despite their gloomy surroundings. It was difficult to feel desolate while stealing sidelong glances at Leo’s keen, dark eyes, his ethereal features, his silky hair, all illuminated softly by the glow of his spells and practically demanding to be kissed; but, equally, she was in no danger of acting on the urge to lean across with their retainers riding so close behind them. She should have passed the time composing a verse in praise of his beauty, Kamui supposed: that was what knights did for the princes they loved in every romance she’d ever read. Experimentally, she tried to string a few lines together, but they didn’t do him justice at all, and the only rhyme she could think of for “ethereal” was “cereal”. With hindsight, perhaps fate would have done better to give these feelings to Leo, and not to her - he, at least, was eloquent enough to put them to good use (although gods knew that silver tongue of his was, in itself, part of the problem). Kamui sighed, thoroughly exasperated with herself: if she had to pine after him, then she ought at least to be able to do it properly.

“Have you tried drawing Siegfried again today?” she asked, feeling that she ought to find something sensible to say.

Leo winced, and spread the skirt of his coat more carefully over the long, linen-wrapped bundle strapped to his saddle. “Kamui, do we really want to be having this conversation in the middle of the woods? These very dank, miry woods?”

“Oops, fair point,” Kamui cringed. It was a point she was quite embarrassed to have missed herself: the only sound to be heard in the Woods of the Forlorn was the constant squelching of their horses’ trek through the mud underfoot. Anankos could be down there now, slithering after them through the puddles of dirty water that pooled in each hoofprint.

But she wasn’t given time to dwell on it. Leo’s point was proven, as a rustle of movement in the thatch of foliage above sent Éowyn’s ears pricking forward, then flattening back. Kamui immediately began running a hand over her mare’s neck, and humming soothing noises at her, but did not take her eyes off the branches above: one of the eeriest things about this place was how still the air always was - there was never so much as a breeze to stir the leaves. Besides, her jennet was an unflappable sweetheart, and it would take more than a sudden noise to make her panic. “Leo, do you think…?”

Leo nodded grimly, halting his own horse and leaning over to whisper sidelong to her. Once their faces were level, he pointed upwards. “There.”

Kamui’s eyes followed the line marked out by his finger. At first, all she could make out was a patchwork of black leaves, but then she saw it: a flicker of movement, a body too massive to be a bird or a wildcat. Her hand fell, at once, to the Yato’s hilt; beside her, Leo unbuckled Brynhildr from his saddle.

“Where is he?” hissed Niles, coming up behind them: he’d cottoned on to what was happening impressively fast. Again Leo pointed out the silhouette in the branches above; now that she knew where to look, Kamui recognised the movement as, unmistakably, the shrinking crouch of a winged creature poised to take off. Niles nodded grimly, and drew his bow.

The arrow sailed into the trees above. There was a loud cry, and another rustling of leaves, as it met its mark.

A very disgruntled griffon tore headlong through the branches, crashing into the bushes ahead of them. It let out an indignant shriek as it struggled to its feet; when it stood, one wing was drooping slightly.

Niles snickered drily to himself. “Well, bugger me. Forgot it was their breeding season.”

“Oh, the poor thing!” Kamui cried, as she watched the griffon slink away into the shadows.

“Ach, she’ll have had worse things in her than arrows. I don’t know if you know much about the lower ends of lions, but…” Niles broke off, seeing the warning glare Leo was giving him. “Well, she’ll walk it off,” he assured her, and fell back again to continue the conversation he’d been having with Odin. Kamui, meanwhile, was anything but reassured.

“She’s probably a good deal safer than we’re about to be. We should have run into him by now,” Leo muttered, putting words to her own thoughts.

“I know,” sighed Kamui. “Let’s hope he’s just off licking his wounds somewhere; until after we’ve done what we set out to, at least.”

“It’s possible, actually,” Leo admitted. “His puppets run on necromancy, after all, which implies that at least some of his own life force is destroyed when one of them is defeated. If I was in his position, I wouldn’t challenge us again until I’d had time to convalesce.”

Kamui cocked her head to the side. “Wait, _can_ dead bodies heal?”

Leo shrugged. “I assume so. Faceless can, and their bodies barely hold together as it is.”

“But then…” Kamui’s heart sank. “But then all he’d have to do is possess a cleric, and he’d be back in business again straightaway.”

“Which is why we need to be out of these woods as quickly as possible,” said Leo darkly. He fell into a grim silence for the next few minutes, though he did brighten a little when the path itself did: the briars he pushed back here framed the tableau of a copse of trees a few ells ahead, where the marshland gave way to a blanket of moss that glowed a brilliant jade-green in the dark.

Kamui’s jaw dropped at the sight of it. An involuntary cry, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, bubbled up in her throat. “So this is why you wanted us to keep going!”

“Part of the reason,” said Leo cryptically; when Kamui tore her gaze from the glade to beam at him, the smirk was back out in full force. He raised his voice to a pitch their retainers would hear; by the sound of the gasps from behind, their reactions were much the same as Kamui’s. “Here we are. We can take a quick break here, but ‘quick’ has to be the operative word, I’m afraid.”

Nobody seemed to mind that stipulation. There was much grateful groaning as everyone dismounted to stretch their legs, or to sit down in the glimmering carpet beneath them. The moss was deliciously soft underfoot; Kamui had taken off her socks, just to burrow her toes into it, before she was rather harshly reminded that it was still winter. They took a late lunch of waybread and lingonberry jam, and Mozu managed to find some chanterelles growing here and there in among the moss. Once she’d eaten her fill, Kamui lay back on the ground, wondering vaguely if this was what it was like to lie on the surface of the moon. With her vision framed by the green aura rising off the earth, everything around her seemed even blacker now than it had during their ride; it was difficult to make out the shapes of the trees overhead at all.

Leo’s face, on the other hand, appeared quite clearly, although he was upside-down and a rather unsettling shade of green.

“What is it?” Kamui asked, sitting up. Wordlessly, he nodded in the direction of an opening in the trees, a narrow natural path leading away from the glade, still lit by a trail of the moss. Kamui grinned, and picked herself up, to follow Leo deeper into the woods.

“I was wondering what your other reason for choosing this spot was,” she said, as they picked their way through the thicket; the branches here were thinner and brittler than the great tangles of wild roses and creepers that covered most of the forest, and were pushed aside easily enough without Brynhildr.

“You’ll understand when we get there,” Leo grinned. It didn’t matter that he walked ahead of her; she could hear the grin in every note he spoke. “It’s not much farther.”

In truth, if it hadn’t been for their other duties, Kamui wouldn’t have cared if they’d had to walk three miles. As the trees grew denser, so too did the moss over their roots; it was easier to make out their shapes now, twisted black spires silhouetted against the green. More than ever, Kamui felt like she was in a fairytale.

But, just as Leo had said, they had only been walking for a moment when another light lit their path, a clearer, colder light that dimmed the moss to a drab brownish-green wherever it fell: the watery light of the pre-dusk sky. Leo had walked a few paces ahead of her for most of this hike, but when they neared the end of the trail he paused, waiting for her to catch up. His entire body was cast in shadow against the pale light behind him, and it was impossible to make out the expression on his face.

“Well,” he said softly, drawing aside the last branch as she passed. “Here we are.”

They had come out at the edge of a precipice. No trees blotted out the sky here; sunset had lately been and gone, leaving a trail of smoky lavender clouds in its wake. It was set to be a clear night, and even in the fading daylight, all the stars could be seen scattered across the heavens in a glimmering spray. The moon was a waxing crescent, about to come into its first quarter, and shed just enough light to bathe the world below in pale silver-grey, as if everything was made of glass. Moss still grew over the ground here, but it was sparser, the earth beneath harder and rockier. This part of the woods was stiller and more serene than the trails they had wandered to reach it, but not as silent: a faint roaring could be heard beneath them, a rushing of water.

And, all at once, Kamui realised where they were.

“Leo, is this…?” She took a careful step forward, towards the brink of the cliff. There was a hasty scuffling of feet behind her, as Leo darted after her.

“Not so close,” he warned, and as she neared the edge Kamui understood why. The drop beneath them must have been a good thirty feet down, though it was difficult to see the bottom beyond the clouds of mist sprayed up by the vast waterfall cascading down the chasm’s opposite side. It was an image Kamui recognised instantly, from all the hours she’d spent staring at illustrations in her books, and listening raptly to Leo’s descriptions.

“The Falls of Merewif,” she breathed, as she stared out across the waters. These, too, had been set eerily aglow by the rising moonlight, like a river of stars. Again Kamui thought, ruefully, of the paintings she’d pored over, and marvelled at just how poorly they had done justice to the real thing.

“I”m sorry,” was the first thing Leo said. “I know you wanted to see them by full moonlight; and I can bring you back later if you want. But will they do as they are in the meantime?”

It took all of Kamui’s willpower to tear her gaze away from the falls and back to Leo. When she did, she saw that he was grinning a different sort of grin to his usual sly smirk: this one was gentler, more crooked, more natural - a bridge between his smirk and his smile that managed to be more endearing than either of them. Kamui had half a mind to throw herself into his arms and kiss him there and then, courtly love be damned; but oh, that would have meant closing her eyes to all of this, even if only for a moment.

Instead she laughed, and sat down, cross-legged, near the brink, watching the falls course past them. “I just… I can’t believe we’re actually here.”

“I did promise I’d take you.” Leo arranged himself, gingerly, on the stone beside her; then apparently thought better of it, and shuffled a little further back. “I’m only sorry it took this long.”

“That’s hardly your fault,” Kamui pointed out. She sighed, then. “But yeah, I remember thinking that the first time I came here. We’d just lost Flora, and we were passing through on our march to Windmire, and the whole time we walked, I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘This is wrong. I’m supposed to approach from the other side, and Leo is supposed to be here with me.’”

“And then I jumped out of a grave and attacked you,” said Leo hollowly. Kamui whipped around to look at him; his face was grim again, his hands clasped together in an agitated twist.

“Oh, Leo, I didn’t mean…”

Leo raised his hands in a halting gesture. “Don’t mistake my meaning. I’m not asking for forgiveness here. The things I said and did to you that day… they were inexcusable. Especially in light of what we now know about my father.” He sighed. “But I also don’t want to make this about me. You’ve wanted to see the falls all your life; and here they are.”

Kamui shook her head, and shuffled further back, so that they were side-by-side again. Leo blinked at her, confused; then flinched, with an odd choked sound, as she took his hands in both of hers.

“I wanted to see them with _you,”_ Kamui corrected softly. “You speak of our battle like it was some dark, terrible thing, and it was, but afterwards… when we reconciled… Leo, that was the happiest I’d ever been since the war first broke out.”

Leo stared at her for a long moment. Then he broke eye contact, looking down at their clasped hands with a rueful half-smile. “Well, likewise. It hardly seems appropriate to say it in my case, considering I proved to be the one on the wrong side, but… Kamui?”

Gently, Kamui had withdrawn one of her hands, and brought it up to lift his chin again.

“Hey,” she whispered, willing herself to avoid staring for too long at his mouth. This proved easier than expected: the fading light was still just bright enough to catch the brighter glints of gold and copper dancing in his dark eyes, trembling with some emotion Kamui couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Do you remember what I told you then?”

“You said you still…” Leo trailed off, and turned his gaze away again; it was difficult to tell in the faint light, but his cheeks seemed to have shaded a little.

“Well, to that I hold. That will never, ever change.” Kamui released his hands, and turned back to the falls; the view of them wasn’t quite as clear back here - not unless you were as tall as Leo, she supposed - but the dreamlike, otherworldly beauty of it all remained. “Especially if you keep showing me stuff like this.”

“Well, that can definitely be arranged,” said Leo; then added, with a rueful grin, “er, ideally sometime when we don’t have the threat of death by vengeful dragon god looming over us constantly.”

Kamui chuckled, and rose to her feet. “Fair point. Should… we head back now, then?”

It was probably selfish of her to pray that he’d say no.

“We could probably spare another couple of minutes, but…” Leo’s eyes widened, then. “Wait, what’s…?”

A faint sound carried through the air: a soft, chirruping cry, almost like a sob. After a moment’s casting about, Kamui traced the noise to a point two or three ells behind her, on the eastern side of the cliff; carefully, with a hand on the Yato’s hilt, she approached the brink on that side.

A griffon perched on a lower peak, combing its sabrelike beak through its fur and feathers, and keening quietly.

“Kamui,” Leo whispered, keeping his voice carefully level as he gently tugged on her shoulder. “Just back away slowly, and…”

“No, wait.” Kamui waved him back a bit; she had just spotted the broken end of the arrow. Most of the shaft had snapped off, but a couple of inches remained embedded in the griffon’s wing. Occasionally, the poor creature would go back and pick at it with her beak; then she would flinch, and cry out, and avoid it again.

“It’s the same one,” Kamui muttered. “Leo, do you have a staff on you?”

“If you’re planning on using it the way I think you are, then no,” he retorted flatly. “Griffons aren’t exactly made of glass. And if you approach that thing, I guarantee we’ll end up having to use the staff on you.”

“We can’t just leave her like that!” said Kamui indignantly.

“Under any other circumstances, I’d be inclined to agree,” Leo conceded, “but let me put it this way: there’s a reason we use wyverns as mounts, rather than griffons. It’s because wyverns are _easier to tame.”_

“Well, I can technically become a giant wyvern myself, if the situation calls for it,” Kamui pointed out. That seemed to have done the trick: Leo sighed, and produced a slightly worn Mend staff from his bag.

“Please yourself, then. If you need me, I’ll be up here, waiting to retrieve your remains once the beast’s eaten its fill of you.”

Kamui stuck her tongue out at him, and went to the very edge of the peak. The griffon started at the sound of her footsteps, and whipped her head up to meet Kamui’s gaze. She was a good deal bigger up close than Kamui had expected her to be, bigger by far than a human; yet there was no aggression to be found in those glittering black eyes, only apprehension. Kamui sighed. This creature must have picked up on what she was as well, she supposed.

When she scrambled over the side of the rock, and dropped down onto the peak below, the griffon shrank back from her with a frightened squawk. Kamui raised her hands flat in the air, hushing her in the same way she’d hush Éowyn.

“Easy, friend,” she murmured, as she sidled closer. “It’s fine. You’re fine. I’m not going to turn into a dragon, I’m just here to heal you…”

The griffon eyed her warily, but made no attempt to lash out at her. Kamui raised a hand to the creature’s beak for her to sniff.

“That’s it…” she whispered, as she drew nearer to the wing; the arrow shaft was poking out from a tangle of matted down. “Now, I’m just going to… take this out…”

When she took hold of it, the griffon protested loudly, and twisted around to snap at her, but Kamui persisted, freeing the arrow with a quick, sharp yank. The griffon shrank back from her with an anguished whimper.

“So much for it not eating you,” Leo called, from overhead.

“It was a warning nip,” said Kamui airily, though her heart ached at the sight of the griffon cowering from her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to her. “Here, let me just heal that now…”

Arrow wounds were some of the easiest to heal; one quick spell was all it took. The griffon eyed her warily for a moment, then began picking at the bloody feathers.

“There, isn’t that better?” Kamui cooed. “Er, now if you’d mind not eating me as I’m climbing back up, that’d be great.”

“You know it can’t understand you, right?” Leo snorted. “It hasn’t even been conditioned to respond to your tone of voice.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t eat Leo, either; but if you want to charge him so he falls on his backside, you have my full support,” Kamui added sweetly.

The griffon’s body twisted, as she eased herself to her feet: having a bird’s legs in the front and a lion’s at the back made moving on the ground a bit difficult to negotiate, it seemed. She turned to Kamui, and took a few steps towards her.

Oh gods.

“Kamui, I think now would be the time to transform…” Leo’s voice had more of an edge to it now, and Kamui was inclined to agree with him. Even on the ground, the griffon stood a good couple of feet taller than Kamui; with each footstep, the moonlight glinted off her needle-sharp talons, each one the length of a breadknife. She still held her injured wing oddly, though, and the fact that she hadn’t taken off when Kamui pulled the arrow out probably meant that flying still wasn’t an option; Kamui backed away a few paces, eyeing the rock face to see if she could scramble back up faster than the griffon could lunge for her.

The griffon stopped less than a foot away from Kamui. With a soft purring noise, she dipped her feathery head into a bow. Then she withdrew, eyeing Kamui as timidly as she had been before.

Oh.

Unsure of how else to respond, Kamui returned the bow with a nod, and began her climb back up.

“Why didn’t you transform?” Leo hissed, as he reached down to help her with the last few feet.

“I didn’t have to,” Kamui explained, a little breathlessly; she couldn’t quite decide whether that was down to nerves, or the effort of the climb, or the feel of Leo’s hands on her waist. Probably it was all three. “She knew what I am anyway.”

Leo was unconvinced. “Kamui…”

“Fine, I promise I’ll transform next time.” Kamui wondered if it would be childish to cross her fingers behind his head.

“The fact that you’re so certain there’ll be a next time is worrying in itself,” Leo sighed, as he lifted her to her feet. “Still, you did the right thing from an idealistic standpoint, even if you did almost get yourself killed; and by extension, the rest of humanity, considering you’re the only person who can wield the Fire Emblem.”

“Oh.” Kamui bowed her head to cringe into his shoulder. “I didn’t think of that.”

Leo’s shoulder tensed for a moment under her; she was about to move away, but then his hands, still gripping her waist, slipped around to her back, holding her in a loose embrace.

“No, I don’t suppose you did. And neither would Marth, or Alm.” When they parted, his eyes were downcast in a wry half-smile. “I guess an excess of chivalry, at the expense of basic common sense, is just part and parcel of your current profession.”

Kamui punched his shoulder lightly, and turned back to the griffon. “Do you think she’ll be able to fly again?”

“Possibly, possibly not,” Leo shrugged. “It depends on how badly damaged the wing was. Whether all the flight feathers are still in the right place, and so on. The recovery process might take a few - _ack!”_

The two of them fell back in a great rush of wind, as the griffon shot into the air in front of them with a triumphant cry. When they'd picked themselves up, she was soaring, silhouetted against the bright sky, just above the woods. Kamui laughed joyfully at the sight, and even Leo watched her go with quiet wonderment.

“I’ve never seen one that close before,” he remarked quietly. His face split into the smirk again, then. “Of course, it’s not an experience I’d want to repeat, either. But I’m glad of it this time.”

Kamui snorted, and drew nearer to his side. There they stood for a long moment, watching the griffon glide in circles over the trees - hunting for bats, Leo suggested. Afterwards, neither of them would be quite sure when, exactly, their hands had met and clasped, or when Kamui’s head had shifted to rest on Leo’s shoulder, or his to press his cheek against the crown of her head; but nor did either of them seem to be in any great hurry to end the moment once they knew it was happening.

In this moment, it seemed to Kamui that the woods around them had grown more still and silent than they were already, and that even the Falls of Merewif had frozen in place over the face of the cliff. In this moment, the only sound in the world was the beat of Leo’s heart, echoing faintly along his shoulder to thrum, softly, under her ear.

 

* * *

 

They had tarried longer than Leo had planned to, but all things considered, he wasn’t really inclined to complain about that. Their party was still making good time, and the very fact that they had reached the Falls of Merewif meant that the edge of the woods was only some twenty minutes away - and less than that, if they broke past walking speed. Morale was higher, too, for the knowledge that they would soon be following the king’s-road again, and that there were beds and hot water waiting for them at the end of it. And in this hour, Leo’s own spirits were as high as any of his companions’. In his case, though, it wasn’t only the fact that they were nearing their journey’s end that eased his mind (although gods knew his room at Palace Macarath was calling to him). No, his catharsis came from a more immediate source than that: she rode by his side now, her pale hair glowing softly in the gloaming light of the woods.

It came to this: Leo loved Kamui. Kamui knew that he loved her. And yet, inexplicably, she didn’t seem to _mind_.

Leo still couldn’t quite recall how it had happened. He couldn’t place when, exactly, he had taken her hand, further back in the woods, as they watched the griffon fly over the Falls of Merewif - it had been an unconscious, almost reflexive movement, which he’d only been made aware of in that mortifying moment when Kamui had shifted against him, and he had feared that she might snatch her hand away and run from him, willing to brave the treacherous paths of the Woods of the Forlorn unguided to escape from her degenerate of a brother.

But, even in the knowledge of why he’d tried to hold her hand, Kamui had never withdrawn it. Instead she had laid her head on his shoulder - she had let him rest his own head against hers. It was an affectionate gesture that could equally be platonic or romantic: Kamui had meant it one way, and had known that Leo meant it another. And yet, when at last the moment _had_ ended, and she _had_ eased out of his hold, there had been no trace of fear, or revulsion, or even simple discomfort in her eyes; only warmth. Only gratitude.

Only…

_“I still love you, brother. That will never, ever change.”_

Kamui herself had been the one to invoke those words again, her hands clasped tightly around his as she recalled them. The meaning behind that was clear: she had seen the darkness in his heart, and she was willing to overlook it all, and continue to love him as a brother. Leo didn’t have to set himself up for rejection to ease her mind; there was no longer any unrest there.

And - most crucially - she _loved_ him. Not in the same way he loved her, he granted, but what did that matter? For whatever reason, Kamui still enjoyed his company. She still wanted to speak with him; to exchange quips with him, to visit new places with him… gods, she’d even accepted, and returned, hugs from him. That, in itself, was more than he'd ever dared allow himself to hope for, after she’d learned how he felt about her.

Kamui loved Leo. Leo loved Kamui. In this hour, no star of death hanging over them could outshine that simple, yet utterly inconceivable reality.

Of course, he did not allow himself to fall entirely complacent here. This last stretch would see them fording the Merewif itself; if there was ever a moment for Anankos to strike, this would be it. And yet, as Leo rode along its bank, scouring the earth for stable enough ground to tread into the water, he found himself carried by a lightness that no amount of anxieties festering in the back of his mind could completely shake.

“Odin, you brought your Thunder tome with you, right?” he called, shouting to make himself heard over the rushing of the river.

“Aye, milord!” Odin nodded brightly. “Have you need of it?”

“Not yet. But keep an eye on the waters. If they start to move strangely, deploy the Radiant Dusk technique.” Even the Forest Dragon could not be immune to the dangers of electrocution, surely.

“What’s Radiant Dusk?” asked Mozu.

“That you shall find out in due course, young Mozu!” boomed Odin. “It is a legendary feat of spell-craft, taught to Lord Leo by the Keeper of the Gold -”

“Well, ideally she _won’t_ find out,” put in Jakob. “Considering Lord Leo only ordered you to deploy it if we’re attacked.”

Odin made a dejected little sound.

“And if we’re not, you have permission to perform the rite anyway, to familiarise the others with the technique,” Leo conceded. As always, he and Kamui rode at the fore of their formation; she would be the only one who saw his indulgent grin.

“Thank you, milord! I shall perform a dazzling spectacle in your honour!”

“I expect nothing less,” said Leo primly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kamui looking at him, her face aglow with a fond smile, and his heart lurched with a force that ought to have knocked him off his horse.

“What?”

“You can be really sweet when you want to be, you know that?” was all she said. Leo’s heart drummed all the faster at that; it truly was a wonder that nobody else could hear it clanging against his ribcage. 

“I’ll take that in the spirit it was intended,” he remarked drily, falling back on banter in a desperate effort to preserve what little remained of his dignity. “Although I don’t think ‘King Leo The Sweet’ was quite the title I had in mind for myself.”

There it was; the invitation to roast. Kamui paused over the gauntlet, and then snatched it up gleefully.

“Well, I can think of worse ones,” she mused, in that winsomely light tone she always used when she was about to use what passed for scathing language in Kamui’s head. “Like Leo the Mad. Or Leo the Grouchy. - no, wait, Leo the Underdressed.” This last one was accompanied by a sidelong glance at his outfit; her laughter only chimed the louder when he reflexively looked down to check himself.

“Now, see, I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘Leo the Old’, to be perfectly frank,” Leo shrugged. It was a title rarely held by Nohrian kings.

“A sensible choice, that,” Kamui agreed, her face temporarily sobering as she pondered it. “Although you’ll have to be careful not to let it overlap with Leo the Senile. Or Leo the Bald.”

“The latter I could live with,” Leo shrugged. “The former not so much.”

Kamui eyed his hair oddly for a moment, her expression slightly pained. She was probably wishing he _would_ go bald, Leo mused a little indignantly: she had always been rather jealous of his hair when they were younger, but he had assumed she’d have grown out of it by now.

“Well, it’s all irrelevant anyway,” she said, finally. “We all know you’ll just be Leo the Wise, or something along those lines.”

“Drat. Leo the Foolhardy was going to be my second choice. Besides, there’s already been a Leo the Wise,” he pointed out. “You know, the one I was named for in the first place.”

“Okay, so you can be Leo the Wiser.”

“Oh, if only,” Leo sighed ruefully. Continuing through these woods while Anankos was still at large didn’t _feel_ very wise. He ought to be back in the capital, making the necessary preparations to defend his people from the possibility of a siege; but home was two days behind them, and he’d reach it faster by moving forwards, rather than back.

These perseverations were interrupted by the clap of Kamui’s hand over his shoulder.

“Hey, you’re still very young for a king,” she pointed out. “You’ve studied so hard already, and you have your whole life to learn the rest.”

“Assuming my city doesn’t fall to a horrifying eldritch dragon god before I have the chance, yes,” muttered Leo.

At any rate, the conversation was cut off there: it was at that point that they had finally noticed Mozu calling to them from further back down the riverbank.

“Hey,” she cried, “wouldn’t this be a good spot to cross? There’s deer tracks here.”

Leo turned, and went to inspect her proposed crossing. There was, indeed, a line of deer tracks neatly packed into the dry dirt, leading down to the riverbed.

“Er - yes, I think this will do quite nicely,” he nodded. “Thank you, Mozu.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t notice it yourself, milord,” Niles remarked drily. “Was your conversation really that stimulating?”

“I should say so,” said Leo, not rising to the bait; though he could already feel his ears reddening. “We were discussing the things future historians are most like to remember me for.”

Alas, Niles was undeterred. “Like how many children you’ll have?”

“Like how many retainers I’ll jail for lèse-majesté,” Leo riposted primly.

“Tough luck, milord. You’re the one who abolished that law, remember?”

“I can reinstate it any time I like,” said Leo ominously. He could still hear Niles laughing over the splashing of Nosferatu’s descent into the water.

They forded the river in tense silence: Odin couldn’t invoke Radiant Dusk here without killing them all, and none of them liked to think about what would happen if the riverbed they now picked their way over suddenly turned out to be the inside of Anankos’s mouth. By some miracle, though, the river remained a river, and the six of them passed over it in one piece.

The moment they were all out of the water, Odin was grinning expectantly at Leo, Thunder tome open in his hand. Leo sighed, and nodded wearily. “Do thy worst, dread Odin.”

“As you command, milord!” Odin wheeled his long-suffering horse around, addressing their party like a street performer announcing his next trick. “Gather ye round now, my sworn brothers and sisters! - er, but but don’t gather ye round _too_ close; this is a splash zone. - Look now, and behold the bane of the water dragon, the force fit to rival the pounding of Mjölnir…”

“How long is this like to take?” Jakob asked Niles, out of the corner of his mouth.

Niles wasn’t listening. “Heh, ‘pounding’…”

“… the blackest art, imparted to me by the King of Sorcery himself: I summon now the terrible might of Radiant Dusk!” Odin slammed his palm down over the pages of his tome; when a moderate amount of electricity sparked over his fingers, he released it into the river with a dramatic flourish that almost knocked him off his horse.

The technique itself wasn’t particularly impressive, but the visual effect was. The water blasted up in a great fountain, just as it had every other time Leo had seen the spell cast; but as the lightning’s current sped along the river’s, the upward spray continued downstream in a vast wall of foam. When it all fell away again, the river was churning thunderously.

Odin stared at the water in silence; neither he nor Leo had ever seen Radiant Dusk applied to moving water, and it seemed even he hadn’t expected quite such a spectacle.

Kamui and Mozu both clapped. Niles gave a low whistle, and even Jakob looked a little impressed. Odin beamed at this reception, the end of his nose spoke reddening in a way that ominously of tears; Leo hastily gave him a brisk clap on the shoulder, agreed that this new phenomenon was very impressive and definitely worth experimenting with when they got home, and suggested they press on. When the river grew still again, no flames floated over its surface, which Leo chose to take as a positive sign.

Once the woods were behind them, and the king’s-road was in sight, he allowed himself to relax a little. Not completely; never completely. It was a king’s job to fret, and any king who thought otherwise didn’t deserve the title. But perhaps after all Anankos really was convalescing, just as Kamui had said - and with any luck, when they faced him again, they would face him with the true Fire Emblem on Kamui’s belt. In the meantime, they were less than an hour from Macarath. If Kamui’s legendary luck held out, the market would still be open when they arrived, and they could stock up on warp books that same day; but either way, tonight they would bathe, and eat a decent meal, and sleep in proper beds.

Tonight, as he did every night, Leo would dream of Kamui; but on this night, for the first time in his life, he would no longer feel ashamed upon waking.

It was with these pleasant thoughts simmering away in the back of his mind that he crossed over onto the king’s-road, and followed it to the crest of the nearest hill, which overlooked the first view of Macarath.

His blood ran cold as the river-water. Immediately, he ordered Nosferatu to a halt, heart in his mouth.

“What is it?” Kamui asked, riding up to him; her jaw dropped when she saw for herself what lay ahead.

The road down from the hill did, indeed, lead in a direct line to Macarath. Plumes of smoke rose from the buildings into the skyline, but they blew up from neither hearth, nor forge, nor athanor; faintly, the toll of the alarm bell echoed grimly throughout the still evening air.

High above the city’s walls, silhouetted against the gleaming sabre-moon, the dragon doused the streets below in jets of flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to every character who appeared in this chapter. Still, we’re starting to make tracks to more positive places now (well, everyone except the Crypt-Keeper is, anyway)… it’ll get worse before it gets better though haha ;;;
> 
> \- Frosts of Sleep is a ~~shameless ripoff~~ filk song based on The Parting Glass. I was going to be even more shameless and just use the song as it is IRL, but it just wasn’t quite funereal enough for what I had planned. The original song, as the name suggests, is traditionally a “parting song” (i.e. a song sung at the end of social gatherings, like Auld Lang Syne) rather than a funeral song, but it is also associated with death sometimes; actually, fun fact, part of it is quoted in “Armstrong’s Goodnight”, which is a death poem by a Border Reiver who was executed in 1605. But yeah, it’s a Scottish folk song from the 17th century at the very latest: it wasn’t written by Ed Sheeran, haha. Before you ask, yes, I did write a “Nohrian version” of the entire song, and we’ll be seeing the rest of it later (a statement which is exactly as ominous as it sounds, mwahaha).
> 
> \- Brynhildr can technically grow plants on any surface, regardless of whether they have access to soil (hence Leo’s being able to conjure trees during battles that take place indoors or on terrain where plants wouldn’t realistically grow), but the plant will only survive for a prolonged period if it has access to all the things it would need for survival if it was a natural plant grown from a seed. This is why Leo has to focus so much of his research on developing hybrid species that can survive in Nohrian soil, rather than just cultivating foreign plants en masse: there’s nothing to stop him from conjuring a field of tomatoes, for example, but they’d have a much shorter shelf life than “real” crops would.
> 
> \- Man, I know it’s not good strategy to pair Azura with Kamui for every battle when she could use or give the stat boost to her S-support partner to greater effect, but it’s what I always do on Birthright runs: I can never bring myself to marry Kamui to anyone besides Leo (I did 100% the support log, but I had to create a separate MU for the purpose haha), so it just felt nice to always put her with this person she has a profound platonic connection to instead. Like Frodo and Sam.
> 
> \- Mendiants are BEAUTIFUL eating. They’re like little discs of dark chocolate with bits of dried fruit and nuts set into the surface of them. Sweeter ones do exist too, of course, but the classic dark ones are the best, and are what the characters here would most likely have access to.
> 
> \- I’m genuinely sorry for what I did to the Crypt-Keeper, and still feel terrible about it. It’s true that I only ever created him to be a redshirt, but if anything that makes it a wee bit worse: it’s like he only ever existed so he could die a horrible death. His entire purpose in life was to get sliced like a scone. So yeah, RIP Crypt-Keeper, you were too good for this world :(
> 
> \- Nohr is, canonically, a country where women can be knights. Nohr is also, canonically, a country where being gay isn’t stigmatised. So when you think about it, it’s fair to assume that at least some of Kamui’s chivalric romances would be stories about statuesque lady knights rescuing quiet scholar princes (HMM, WHO DOES THAT REMIND YOU OF), and some others would be gay romances along the lines of Utena, in addition to the standard Lancelot-and-Guinevere dynamic found in our chivalric literature. Idk, I just like the image of little Kamui and Elise having Camilla read them some approximation of Princess Knight while Leo rolls his eyes from across the room and pretends he’s not listening to it as well.
> 
> \- Bioluminescent moss really is a thing! It's known as Schistostega pennata, or Dragon's Gold, and glows a weird Flubbery green in dark places.
> 
> \- Also I finished the charms I was working on whilst writing the last chapter, if anyone’s interested! Although I can’t link to the preorder page for them because that would violate AO3’s terms of service (for a very good reason), so I’m afraid you’ll have to go spelunking on my Twitter for that, haha.


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